THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


IN  MEMORY  OF 
MRS.  VIRGINIA  B.  SPORER 


POETIC  ORIGINS 
AND  THE  BALLAD 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON  •    CHICAGO  •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •    SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


POETIC  ORIGINS 
AND  THE   BALLAD 


BY 

LOUISE  POUND,  Ph.D. 

Professor  of  English  in  the  University  of  Nebraska 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1921 

A.II  right*  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1921, 
BY  THE   MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  elect  retyped.     Published,  January,  1921. 


College 
Library 


TN 


TO 
HARTLEY  AND  NELLIE  ALEXANDER 


11S1117 


PREFACE 

The  leading  theses  of  the  present  volume  are  that  the 
following  assumptions  which  have  long  dominated  our 
thought  upon  the  subject  of  poetic  origins  and  the  ballads 
should  be  given  up,  or  at  least  should  be  seriously  quali- 
fied ;  namely,  belief  in  the  "  communal  "  authorship  and 
ownership  of  primitive  poetry;  disbelief  in  the  primitive 
artist;  reference  to  the  ballad  as  the  earliest  and  most 
universal  poetic  form;  belief  in  the  origin  of  narrative 
songs  in  the  dance,  especially  definition  of  the  English  and 
Scottish  traditional  ballad  type  as  of  dance  origin ;  belief 
in  the  emergence  of  traditional  ballads  from  the  illiterate, 
that  is,  belief  in  the  communal  creation  rather  than  re- 
creation of  ballads;  belief  in  the  special  powers  of  folk- 
improvisation;  and  belief  that  the  making  of  traditional 
ballads  is  a  "  closed  account."  The  papers  making  it  up 
are  reprinted,  with  a  few  modifications  and  considerable 
additional  material,  from  the  Publications  of  the  Modern 
Language  Association  of  America,  from  Modern  Philology, 
from  The  Mid-West  Quarterly,  and  from  Modern  Lan- 
guage Notes.  A  few  are  printed  for  the  first  time,  and  the 
chapter  on  "  Balladry  in  America  "  is  indebted  to  a  chapter 
on  "  Oral  Literature  in  America  "  published  in  The  Cam- 
bridge History  of  American  Literature.  Thanks  are  due 
to  the  publishers  for  permission  to  utilize  passages  from  the 
latter.  The  polemical  tone  of  the  papers,  which  is  so 
marked  as  to  need  explanation,  is  to  be  accounted  for  by 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

the  fact  that  each  was  written  to  urge  a  distinctive  point 
of  view  or  to  oppose  some  accepted  position,  i.  e.,  was  a 
piece  of  special  pleading.  It  was  impossible  to  eliminate 
the  argumentative  note  without  re-writing  the  articles 
in  toto. 

Much  attention  is  given  in  the  course  of  the  volume  to 
the  subject  of  folk-song  in  America. 

The  author  wishes  to  express  grateful  acknowledgment 
to  Professor  H.  M.  Belden  of  the  University  of  Missouri, 
who  first  encouraged  her  to  interest  herself  in  the  study 
of  folk-song,  and  to  Professor  H.  B.  Alexander  of  the 
University  of  Nebraska,  to  whom  she  owes  her  interest  in 
poetic  origins  and  in  much  more  besides.  Both  have  read 
the  manuscript  in  parts  and  to  both  she  is  indebted  for 
generous  assistance.  Adequate  acknowledgment  of  their 
help  cannot  be  dismissed  with  a  phrase. 

LOUISE  POUND. 

University  of  Nebraska, 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE vii 

CHAPTER 

I    THE  BEGINNINGS  OP  POETRY 1 

I     "  Communal  "  Authorship  and  Ownership  .      .  4 

II    Individual  Authorship  and  Ownership  ...  13 

III     The  "  Ballad  "  as  the  Earliest  Poetic  Form  .     .  27 

II    THE  MEDIAEVAL  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 36 

I    The  Name  "Ballad" 39 

II    Dance   Songs  Proper .     .  47 

III    Narrative  Songs  and  the  Dance 67 

III  BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITERATE 87 

I     Sources  of  Recovery 89 

II    Audience   and  Authorship  as  Mirrored  in  the 

Ballads 95 

III     The  Ballads  and  Literature 106 

IV  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 120 

I    Incremental  Repetition  and  Other  Ballad  Man- 
nerisms         121 

II    Dialogue  and  Situation  Ballads  and  Theories  of 

Development 139 

III  The  "  Uniformity  "  of  the  Ballad  Style  .     .     .146 

IV  Improvisation  and  Folk-Song 153 

V    THE  ENGLISH  BALLADS  AND  THE  CHURCH  ....  162 

I    The  Earliest  Ballad  Texts 163 

II    Some  Ballad  Affiliations 171 

III    Ballads  and  Clericals 183 

iz 


x  CONTENTS 

VI    BALLADRY  IN  AMERICA 192 

I    Old- World  Ballads  and  Songs  in  America  .     .  193 

II    Indigenous  Ballads  and  Songs 201 

III  The  Southwestern  Cowboy  Songs  and  the  Eng- 

lish and  Scottish  Ballads 214 

IV  Ballad  Making  as  a  "  Closed  Account "...  231 
INDEX   ,                                                                           .  237 


POETIC  ORIGINS  AND 
THE  BALLAD 

CHAPTER  I 
THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETRY 

Certain  [Indian]  societies  require  that  each  member  have  a 
special  song ;  this  song  is  generally  of  the  man's  own  composition, 
although  sometimes  these  songs  are  inherited  from  a  father  or  a 
near  relative  who  when  living  had  been  a  member  of  the  society. 
These  individual  songs  are  distinct  from  songs  used  in  the  cere- 
monies and  regarded  as  the  property  of  the  society,  although  the 
members  are  entitled  to  sing  them  on  certain  occasions.  When 
this  society  holds  its  formal  meetings  a  part  of  the  closing 
exercises  consists  of  the  simultaneous  singing  by  all  the  mem- 
bers present  of  their  individual  songs.  The  result  is  most  dis- 
tressing to  a  listener,  but  there  are  no  listeners  unless  by  chance 
an  outsider  is  present,  for  each  singer  is  absorbed  in  voicing 
his  own  special  song  which  is  strictly  his  own  personal  affair, 
so  that  he  pays  no  attention  to  his  neighbour,  consequently  the 
pandemonium  to  which  he  contributes  does  not  exist  for  him. 

The  foregoing  paragraph  from  Miss  Alice  C.  Fletcher's 
account  of  Indian  music  *  reads  like  a  travesty  of  the  ac- 
cepted view  of  primitive  song,  its  character  and  author- 
ship. There  is  the  familiar  primitive  "  horde,"  engaged 
in  festal  singing,  without  onlookers.  Yet  instead  of  col- 

i  The  Study  of  Indian  Music.  Reprinted  from  the  Proceedings  of 
the  National  Academy  of  Sciences,  vol.  I,  p.  233.  1915.  According 
to  Miss  Fletcher,  the  Indians  are  sitting  as  they  sing. 

Compare  a  custom  among  the  Karok,  an  Indian  tribe  of  California 
(Stephen  Powers,  Contributions  to  North  American  Ethnology,  vol. 
m,  p.  29,  Washington,  1877). 

1 


2  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETRY 

laborative  composition,  improvisation,  and  communal 
ownership  of  the  ensuing  "  ballad,"  we  have  individual 
authorship  and  ownership,  and  individual  singing.  This 
is  the  testimony  of  a  specialist  who  has  spent  many  years 
among  the  people  of  whom  she  writes,  studying  and  record- 
ing their  songs  and  their  modes  of  composition.  Easily 
recognizable  is  the  homogeneous  primitive  group,  singing 
in  festal  ceremony ;  but  this  group  does  not  conduct  itself 
in  the  way  which  literary  historians  have  insisted  that  we 
should  expect. 

The  songs  of  primitive  peoples  have  received  much  at- 
tention in  recent  years,  especially  the  songs  of  the  Ameri- 
can Indians.  An  immense  amount  of  material  has  been 
collected  and  made  available;  and  this  has  been  done  in 
a  scientific  way,  with  the  help  of  countless  phonographic 
and  other  records.  Instead  of  having  to  rely  on  the  stray 
testimonies  of  travellers,  explorers,  historians,  and  essay- 
ists, the  student  of  primitive  poetry  has  now  at  his  disposal 
an  amount  of  data  unavailable  to  his  predecessors.  He 
need  not  linger  among  the  fascinating  mysteries  of  roman- 
tic hypotheses,  but  can  supply  himself  with  the  carefully 
observed  facts  of  scientific  record.2 

In  this  matter  it  cannot  be  valid  to  object  that  we  should 
not  look  among  North  or  South  American  Indians,  or  Eski- 

2  References  of  chief  importance  for  the  American  Indians  are 
Frederick  R.  Burton,  American  Primitive  Music,  with  especial  atten- 
tion to  the  songs  of  the  Ojibways,  New  York,  1909;  Natalie  Curtis, 
The  Indian's  Book,  New  York,  1900;  and  the  following  thorough 
studies:  Frances  Densmore,  Chippewa  Music,  in  Bulletins  45  (1910) 
and  53  (1913)  of  the  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  and  Teton 
Sioux  Music,  Washington  (1918);  Alice  C.  Fletcher,  A  Study  of 
Omaha  Indian  Music,  Papers  of  the  Pea-body  Museum,  vol.  I,  No. 
5,  1893,  Indian  Story  and  Song,  Boston,  1900,  The  Hako:  a  Pawnee 


POETIC  ORIGINS  3 

mos  for  "  beginnings."  It  cannot  reasonably  be  said  that 
these  tribes  we  too  advanced,  too  highly  civilized,  to  afford 
trustworthy  evidence  as  to  aboriginal  modes.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  we  can  go  little  farther  back,  in  tlje  analysis  of  cul- 
ture, than  these  people,  if  we  are  to  stay  by  what  can  be 
demonstrated.  When  we  have  learned  what  we  can  learn 
from  the  primitive  tribes  on  our  own  continent,  in  South 
America,  Africa,  Australia,  Oceania,  we  know  very  nearly 
all  that  we  can  surely  know.  If  we  go  to  the  prehistoric, 
we  are  conjecturing,  and  we  ought  to  label  our  statements 
"  conjecture."  In  general,  gradations  of  "  primitive- 
ness  "  among  savage  peoples  are  difficult  to  make.  A 
social  group  may  show  the  simplest  or  least  organized 
social  structure,  and  yet  be  relatively  advanced  in  musical 
and  artistic  talent.  Another  group  may  show  advance  in 
social  organization,  yet  be  backward  in  song  and  story. 
And  certainly  even  the  most  advanced  of  the  Indian  com- 
munities (with  the  exception  of  civilized  Mexico  and 
Peru)  are  every  whit  as  primitive  as  the  mediaeval  peasant 
communes,  from  whose  supposed  ways  we  are  constantly 
asked  to  learn  as  regards  poetic  beginnings.3  If,  as  we 

Ceremony,  22  Report  (1904),  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  and 
The  Study  of  Indian  Music  quoted  supra;  James  Mooney,  The 
Ghost-Dance  Religion,  14  Report,  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  Part  II, 
1896.  Excellent  pieces  of  work  are  "  Hopi  Songs  "  and  "  Zufii  Melo- 
dies," by  B.  I.  Gilman,  published  respectively  in  the  Journal  of 
American  Ethnology  and  Archaeology,  vol.  i,  1891,  and  vol.  v,  1908, 
but  nothing  is  said  in  these  regarding  the  composition  or  presenta- 
tion of  the  songs  recorded.  Many  references  are  cited  later,  es- 
pecially books,  studies,  or  special  articles  dealing  with  South  Amer- 
ican, African,  and  Australian  tribes. 

•  See  F.  B.  Gummere,  The  Beginnings  of  Poetry,  J901,  and  The 
Popular  Ballad,  1907.  See  also  Primitive  Poetry  and  the  Ballad, 
Modem  Philology,  i,  1904. 


4  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETRY 

are  told,  prehistoric  song-modes  are  reflected  in  the  folk- 
dances  and  festal  throngs  of  mediaeval  peasants  and  vil- 
lagers, or  in  the  singing  of  nineteenth-century  Corsican 
field  laborers,  Styrian  threshers,  Gascon  vintage  choruses, 
Italian  country-folk,  Silesian  peasants,  Faroe  Island  fish- 
ermen, and  harvest-field  songs  everywhere,4  they  ought 
to  be  reflected  yet  more  in  the  song-modes  of  the  American 
Indians. 


I  -  "  COMMUNAL,  "  AUTHORSHIP  AND  OWNERSHIP 

At  the  present  time  the  accepted  or  orthodox  view,  t.  e.t 
among  literary  critics,  hardly  among  anthropologists,  con- 
cerning the  authorship  of  primitive  song  and  the  "  begin- 
nings of  poetry  "  is  reflected  in  such  passages  as  the  fol- 
lowing, from  a  recent  work  by  Professor  Richard  Green 
Moulton  :  5 

"N  > 

The  primary  element  of  literary  form  is  the  ballad  dance.  This 
is  the  union  of  verse  with  musical  accompaniment  and  dancing; 
the  dancing  being,  not  exactly  what  the  words  suggest  to  modern 
ears,  but  the  imitative  and  suggestive  action  of  which  an  orator's 
gestures  are  the  nearest  survival.  Literature,  where  it  first  ap- 
pears spontaneously,  takes  this  form  :  a  theme  or  story  is  at  once 
versified,  accompanied  with  music,  and  suggested  in  action. 
When  the  Israelites  triumphed  at  the  Red  Sea,  Miriam  "took 
a  timbrel  in  her  hands;  and  all  the  women  went  out  after  her 
with  timbrels  and  dances."  This  was  a  ballad  dance;  it  was  a 
more  elaborate  example  of  the  same  when  David,  at  the  inaugura- 
tion of  Jerusalem,  "  danced  before  the  Lord  with  all  his  might." 
And  writers  who  deal  with  literary  origins  offer  abundant  illus- 


6  The  Modern  Study  of  Literature,  Chicago,  1915.     From  Chapter  I, 
"The  Elements  of  Literary  Form." 


COMMUNAL  AUTHORSHIP 

trations  of  folk-dances  among  the  most  diverse  peoples  in  an 
early  stage  of  civilization. 

In  this  passage  and  in  his  diagrams  showing  literary 
evolution  6  [Prof  essor  Moulton  gives  the  "ballad  dance" 
the  initial  position  in  the  chronology  of  musical  and  liter- 
ary history,  characterizing  it  as  the  "  primitive  literary 
form  "•  -  the  ballad  dance,  moreover,  according  to  the 
usual  view,  of  the  throng.  Individual  composition  of  and 
proprietorship  in  song  is  of  secondary  development;  and 
when  this  sta^e  has  been  reached,  "  folk-song  "  has  passed 
into  "  artistry^ 

The  following  passages  make  clear  the  position  of  Pro- 
fessor A.  S.  Mackenzie  7  :  "  Inasmuch  as  dancing  is  the 
most  spontaneous  of  all  the  arts,  it  may  be  regarded  as 
the  earliest.  Linked  with  inarticulate  vocal  cries  it  fell 
under  the  spell  of  measure  or  order,  and  slowly  grew 
more  rational  "  .  .  .  "  impulsive  motions  and  sounds 
prepare  the  way  for  voluntary  movements  of  the  body  and 


td.,  pp.  18,  26. 

i  The  Evolution  of  Literature,  1911.  For  the  quotations  cited,  see 
pp.  131,  147,  261,  263. 

This  view  of  the  priority  of  the  dance  and  of  the  dance  song  is 
found  in  Franz  Bohme's  Geschichte  des  Tanzes  im  Deutschland 
(1888)  :  "  Tanzlieder  waren  die  ersten  Lieder,"  "  Beim  Tan/e  wurden 
die  illtesten  epischen  Dichtungen  (erziihlende  Volkslieder)  ge- 
sungen,"  "  Die  iilteste  Poesie  eines  jeden  Volkes  ist  eine  Verbindung 
von  Tanz,  Spiel  und  Gesang." 

Karl  Bilcher,  Arbeit  und  Rhythmus  (2nd  ed.  1809),  finds  the  origin 
of  poetry  in  labor  songs,  and  assigns  to  primitive  labor  the  r6le  so 
often  assigned  to  the  primitive  dance:  ".  .  .  es  ist  die  energische, 
rhythmische  Korperbewegung,  die  zur  Entstehung  der  Poesie 
geftthrt  hat,  insbesondere  diejenige  Bewegung,  welche  wir  Arbeit 
nennen.  Es  gilt  dies  aber  ebensowohl  von  der  formellen  als  der 
materiellen  Seite  der  Poesie,"  p.  306. 


6  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETEY 

the  voice.  When  these  are  controlled  by  rhythm,  the 
rudiments  of  dancing  and  music  have  emerged,  though 
they  remain  inseparable  for  many  a  year  "  ..."  It  was 
such  extemporaneous  efforts  [tribal  improvisation]  that 
gave  rise  to  the  first  verses  which  bear  any  resemblance  to 
what  we  are  accustomed  to  call  poetry.  The  first  artist 
served  his  apprenticeship  as  an  improvised  under^F e'stal 

more  worthy  verse 

E Not  only  flfflohg  the  lilghtif  tribes  buteven 
in  Europe  the  primitive  custom  of  extemporizing  coexists 
alongside  the  more  advanced  custom  of  composing  with 
deliberation  apart  from  the  throng "  .  .  .  "  His  [prim- 
itive man's]  humble  verse  is  in  constant  dependence  upon 
the  collective  emotion  produced  by  the  choric  dance  "... 
"  Apart  from  the  festal  dance  it  is  difficult  to  find  any 
definite  traces  either  of  poetic  sources  or  of  poetic  forms, 
and  we  are  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  the  earliest  art 
impulse  is  essentially  collective  rather  than  individual, 
objective  rather  than  subjective.  No  doubt  primitive 
improvisation  is  the  halting  keynote  of  individuality,  but 
it  is  speedily  lost  in  the  ethnic  chorus.  In  vain  do  we 
look  here  for  that  poetry  which  is  born  of  meditation  in 
solitude  and  deliberately  framed  into  metrical  perfection." 
Last,  let  some  passages  from  Professor  Gummere's 
The  Beginnings  of  Poetry  be  cited.  Professor  Gummere 
was  recognized  as  a  leading  scholar  of  the  subject,  and  in 
view  of  his  learning,  ability,  and  his  years  of  attention 
to  the  matter,  his  words  may  well  have  especial  weight. 
Here  are  some  characteristic  sentences  8 :  "  Poetry  begins 

8  The  Beginnings  of  Poetry  (1901),  pp.  139,  321,  106,  212,  13,  93, 
etc.  Later,  by  Professor  Gummere.  are  The  Popular  Ballad  (1907), 
and  the  chapter  on  Ballads  in  the  Cambridge  History  of  English 


COMMUNAL  AUTHOKSHIP 

with  the  impersonal,  with  communal  emotion."  f "  The 
ballad  is  a  song  made  in  the  dance,  and  so  by  the  dance. 
.  .  .  The  communal  dance  is  the  real  source  of  the  song." 
"  The  earliest  '  muse '  was  the  rhythm  of  the  throng.'? 
"  Festal  throngs,  not  a  poet's  solitude,  are  the  birthplaceToi 
poetry."  "  Overwhelming  evidence  shows  all  primitive 
poetical  expression  of  emotion  to  have  been  collective." 
Let  two  quotations  of  greater  length  be  given : 

As  the  savage  laureate  slips  from  the  singing,  dancing  crowd, 
which  turns  audience  for  the  nonce,  and  gives  his  short  improvisa- 
tion, only  to  yield  to  the  refrain  of  the  chorus,  so  the  actual 
habit  of  individual  composition  and  performance  has  sprung 
from  the  choral  composition  and  performance.  The  improvisa- 
tions and  the  recitative  are  short  deviations  from  the  main  road, 
beginnings  of  artistry,  which  will  one  day  become  journeys  of 
the  solitary  singer  over  pathless  hills  of  song,  those  "  wanderings 
of  thought "  which  Sophocles  has  noted ;  and  the  curve  of  evolu- 
tion in  the  artist's  course  can  show  how  rapidly  and  how  far 
this  progress  has  been  made.  But  the  relation  must  not  be  re- 
versed; and  if  any  fact  seems  established  for  primitive  life,  it  is 
the  precedence  of  choral  song  and  dance.  .  .  . 
£]jflere  it  is  enough  to  show  that  rhythmical  verse  came  directly 
from  choral  song,  and  that  neither  the  choral  song,  nor  any 
regular  song,  could  have  come  from  tha  recitative. 

It  is  natural  for  one  person  to  speak,  or  even  to  sing,  and  for 
ninety-nine  persons  to  listen.  It  is  also  natural  for  a  hundred 
persons,  under  strong  emotion,  to  shout,  sing,  dance,  in  concert 
and  as  a  throng,  not  as  a  matter  of  active  and  passive,  of  give 
and  take,  but  in  common  consen^of  expression.  The  second 
situation  .  .  .  must  have  preceded.®) 

Literature   (1908);   but  these  deal  primarily  with  the  English  and 
Scottish  ballads,  not  with  the  origins  of  poetry. 

»  Pp.  80,  81.  In  Professor  Gummere's  article  on  "  The  Ballad  and 
Communal  Poetry,"  Child  Memorial  volume  (Harvard  Studies  and 
Notes,  etc.,  1896),  he  said:  "Spontaneous  composition  in  a  danc- 


8  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETKY 

He  reminds  us  again  in  an  article  on  Folk-Song  10  that 
"  It  is  very  important  to  remember  that  primitive  man 
regarded  song  as  a  momentary  and  spontaneous  thing." 
[_To  come  farther  down  in  the  history  of  song,  a  favorite 
picture  with  Professor  Gummere  is  of  European  peasant 
folk  in  the  Middle  Ages,  improvising  "  ballads  "  in  song 
and  dance,  and  thus  —  by  virtue  of  the  simple  homogene- 
ous character  of  their  life  —  establishing  a  type  of  balladry 
superior  to,  and  having  more  vitality  than,  anything  of 

ing  multitude  —  all  singing,  all  dancing,  and  all  able  on  occasion 
to  improvise  —  is  a  fact  of  primitive  poetry  about  which  we  may 
be  as  certain  as  such  questions  allow  us  to  be  certain.  Behind 
individuals  stands  the  human  horde.  .  .  .  An  insistent  echo  of  this 
throng  .  .  .  greets  us  from  the  ballads."  He  added  communal 
poetry  to  Wundt's  (Ueber  Ziele  und  Wege  der  Volkerpsychologie) 
three  products  of  the  communal  mind, —  speech,  myth,  and  custom. 
"  Universality  of  the  poetic  gift  among  inferior  races,  spontaneity 
or  improvisation  under  communal  conditions,  the  history  of  refrain 
and  chorus,  the  early  relation  of  narrative  songs  to  the  dance  "  [the 
italics  are  added]  are  facts  so  well  established  that  "  it  is  no  absur- 
dity to  insist  on  the  origin  of  poetry  under  communal  and  not 
under  artistic  conditions."  More  difficulty  lies  in  "  the  assertion 
of  simultaneous  composition.  Yet  this  difficulty  is  more  appar-Xdt 
than  real." 

Grosse,  Anfange  der  Kunst  (1894),  ch.  ix,  finds  the  poetry  of 
primitive  peoples  to  be  egoistic  in  inspiration,  and  gives  examples 
of  lyrics  of  various  types  which  point  to  this.  "  Im  Allgemeinen 
tragt  die  Lyrik  der  Jagervolker  einen  durchaus  egoistischen  Cha- 
rakter.  Der  Dichter  besingt  seine  personlichen  Leiden  und  Freu- 
den;  das  Schicksal  seiner  Mitmenschen  entlockt  ihm  nur  selten 
einen  Ton."  For  Professor  Gummere's  discussion  and  rejection  of 
Grosse's  view,  see  The  Beginnings  of  Poetry,  pp.  381  ff. 

For  a  present-day  German  view  of  primitive  poetry,  see  Erich 
Schmidt,  "  Die  Anfange  der  Literatur,"  Die  Kultur  der  Gegenwart, 
Leipzig  (1906),  1,  pp.  1-27.  For  a  French  view,  see  A.  van  Gennep, 
La  Formation  des  Ltgendes,  Paris  (1910),  pp.  210-211. 

10  In  Warner's  Library  of  the  World's  Best  Literature. 


COMMUNAL  AUTHORSHIP  9 

the  kind  having  its  origin  in  individual  authorship.^  It  is 
a  long  gap,  that  between  aboriginal  song  and  dance  and 
the  English  and  Scottish  ballads  of  the  fifteenth  and  six- 
teenth centuries;  yet  it  is  a  gap  we  are  asked  to  bridge. 
Undoubtedly,  if  that  "  most  ancient  of  creative  processes," 
(the  communal  throng  chorally  creating  its  song  from  the 
festal  dance,  existed  among  the  mediaeval  peasants  and 
produced  work  of  the  high  value  of  the  English  and  Scot- 
tish ballads,  the  same  "  ancient  method  "  should  prevail 
among  that  yet  more  primitive  people,  the  American 
Indians/) 

That  it  is  an  absurd  chronology  which  assumes  that  in- 
dividuals have  choral  utterance  before  they  are  lyrically 
articulate  as  individuals,  seems  —  extraordinarily 
enough  —  to  have  little  weight  with  theorists  of  this  school. 
(Did  primitive  man  sing,  dance,  and  compose  in  a  throng, 
while  he  was  yet  unable  to  do  so  as  an  individual  ?  We 
are  asked  to  believe  this.]  Are  we  to  assume  that  he  was 
inarticulate  and  without  creative  gift  till  suddenly  he 
participated  in  some  festal  celebration  and  these  gifts  be- 
came his  ?  Professor  Gummere  cites  as  evidence,  so  im- 
portant as  to  deserve  italics.  Dr.  Paul  Ehrenreich's  state- 
ment concerning  the  Botocudos  of  South  America,  "  They 
never  sing  without  dancing,  never  dance  without  singing, 
and  have  but  one  word  to  express  both  song  and  dance."  u 
Much  the  same  thing,  save  as  regards  limitations  of  vo- 
cabulary, might  have  been  said  by  a  traveller  among  the 
ancient  Greeks,  with  whom  dance  was  generally  insepar- 
able from  music  and  verse.  Xothing  is  proved  by  this 

11  Ueber  die  Botocuden,  Zeitschrift  fur  Ethnologic,  xix,  pp.  30  ff. 
Quoted  in  The  Beginnings  of  Poetry,  p.  95;  also  Democracy  and 
Poetry  (1911),  pp.  231  ff.  See  note  45,  infra,  p.  26. 


10  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETRY 

characteristic  of  the  Botocudos,  if  it  is  a  characteristic; 
any  more  than  anything  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  the  far 
more  aboriginal  Akkas  of  South  Africa  12  have  songless 
dances,  or  by  the  fact  that  danceless  songs  —  a  circum- 
stance hard  to  fit  into  the  accepted  view  of  primitive  poetry 
—  have  been  reported  among  the  Andamanese,  the  Austral- 
ians, the  Maori  of  New  Zealand,  Semang  of  Malaysia, 
Seri  of  Mexico,  and  Eskimo  of  the  Arctic,  as  well  as  among 
practically  all  North  American  tribes  that  have  been 
studied  in  detail.  According  to  the  testimony  of  Miss 
Fletcher,  there  are  many  songs  sung  by  Indian  societies  in 
which  there  is  no  dancing.13  Such  songs  are  spoken  of  as 
"  Rest  Songs."  In  the  account  quoted  at  the  opening  of 
this  volume,  of  the  simultaneous  singing  of  individual 
songs  by  the  members  of  a  certain  society  as  the  clos- 
ing act  of  a  meeting,  the  members  are  sitting  as  they 
sing.  Their  individual  songs  are,  in  a  sense,  creden- 
tials of  membership.  Each  song  is  strictly  individual,  and 
refers  to  a  personal  experience.  "  In  most  societies,"  says 
Miss  Fletcher,  "  as  well  as  in  the  ceremonies  of  the  tribe, 
the  songs  are  led  by  a  choir,  or  by  persons  officially  ap- 

12  Some  references  for  the  Akkas  are  G.  Burrows,  On  the  Natives 
of  the  Upper  Welle  District  of  the  Belgian  Congo,  Journal  of  the 
Anthropological  Institute  (1889),  xxviii;  Sir  H.  James,  Geographi- 
cal Journal,  xvn,  p.  40,  1906;  G.  A.  Schweinfurth,  Heart  of  Africa, 
N.  Y.,  1874,  vol.  II;  H.  von  Wissmann,  Heine  Zweite  Durchquerung 
Aequatorial-Afrikas,  Frankfort,  1890;  H.  M.  Stanley,  In  Darkest 
Africa,  N.  Y.,  1891;  H.  Schlichter,  Pygmy  Tribes  of  Africa,  Scot. 
Oeog.  Mag.,  vni,  etc. 

is  In  a  letter  to  the  author. 

Among  the  Brazilian  cannibal  tribe,  the  Boroa,  the  tribesman 
with  a  grievance  enters  the  principal  dance,  stalks  to  a  position  in 
eight  of  all,  and  chants  his  solo  standing  stock  still,  with  up- 
raised hand.  T.  Whiffen,  The  North-West  Amazons  (1915),  p.  196. 


COMMUNAL  AUTHORSHIP  11 

pointed  as  leaders.  The  members  of  the  society  frequently 
join  in  the  song.  I  do  not  recall  anyone  performing  a 
dramatic  dance  and  singing  at  the  same  time.  While  all 
dances  are  accompanied  by  song,  many  songs  are  sung 
without  dancing.  Some  of  the  dancing  is  not  violent  in 
action,  the  movement  is  merely  rhythm  and  swaying.  In 
such  dances,  the  dancers  sing  as  they  move.  Occasionally, 
as  I  recall,  the  song  for  a  dance  which  is  dramatic  and 
vigorous,  bringing  all  the  body  into  play,  will  be  sung  by 
the  choir  (men  and  women  seated  about  the  drum).  Some 
of  the  people  sitting  and  watching  the  dance  may  clap  their 
hands  in  rhythm  with  the  drum.  This,  however,  is  play- 
fulness by  some  privileged  person  and  indicates  enjoy- 
ment." 

Surely  the  individual  does  everything  he  can  do,  or 
chooses  to  do,  as  an  individual,  before,  or  contemporary 
with,  his  ability  to  do  the  same  as  a  member  of  a  throng. 
The  testimonies  of  travellers  as  to  communal  singing  and 
dancing  among  savage  or  peasant  communities  prove  noth- 
ing at  all  as  to  origins;  certainly  they  do  not  prove  that 
collective  poetic  feeling  and  authorship  preceded  individ- 
ual feeling  and  authorship.  Testimonies  as  to  tribal  song 
ought  to  outnumber  testimonies  as  to  individual  song, 
since  the  spectator  is  chiefly  interested  in  tribal  ways. 
He  would  be  struck  by  and  record  tribal  ceremonies,  rit- 
uals, and  songs,  where  individual  singing  would  escape 
attention  or  seem  unimportant.  Besides,  choruses  would 
no  doubt  be  more  numerous  than  solos,  and  bound  up  with 
more  important  occasions;  much  as  solo  dances  are  infre- 
quent, among  savage  tribes,  compared  to  mass  dancing. 
To  reiterate,  however,  testimony  no  matter  how  great  its 
quantity,  that  savage  peoples  sing  and  dance  in  throngs, 


12  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETKY 

or  improvise  while  doing  so,  proves  nothing  as  to  the  pri- 
ority of  communal  over  individual  feeling,  authorship, 
and  ownership. 

The  evidence  concerning  primitive  song  which  should 
have  greatest  weight  is  not  that  of  travellers  and  explorers, 
interested  chiefly  in  other  things  than  song,  but  that  of 
special  scholars,  who  have  recorded  and  studied  avail- 
able material  with  a  view  to  its  nature,  its  composition,  and 
its  vitality.  Among  these  there  seems  to  be  neither  doubt 
nor  divergence  of  opinion;  and  their  testimony  is  at  var- 
iance with  the  now  established  tradition  of  the  literary  his- 
torian. The  general  social  inspiration  of  song  is  not  to 
be  denied.  In  a  broad  sense,  all  art  is  a  social  phenome- 
non —  the  romanticists  to  the  contrary.  Song  is  mainly  a 
social  thing  at  the  present  time,  and  it  was  yet  more  pre- 
vailingly social  among  our  remote  ancestors.  Rather  is 
it  proposed  to  subject  to  examination  the  following  specific 
hypotheses :  the  inseparableness  of  primitive  dance,  music, 
and  song;  the  simultaneous  mass-composition  of  primitive 
song;  mass-ownership  of  primitive  song;  the  narrative 
character  of  primitive  song ;  the  non-existence  of  the  prim- 
itive artist.  Far  from  certain,  also,  is  the  hypothesis  of 
the  birth  of  rhythmic  or  musical  utterance  from  rhythmic 
action,  if  this  be  conceived  as  a  form  of  limb  or  bodily 
motion. 

In  citations  of  illustrative  material,  primary  use  is 
made  of  American  Indian  material.  It  is  this  material, 
on  the  whole,  which  has  been  collected  and  studied  most 
carefully.  Coming  as  it  does  from  homogenous  primitive 
peoples,  in  the  tribal  state,  having  one  standard  of  life, 
and  as  yet  unaffected  by  the  poetic  modes  of  civilization, 
it  should  have  importance  for  the  questions  under  dis- 


INDIVIDUAL  AUTHOKSHIP  13 

cussion.  Parallel  material  —  of  which  liberal  use  is  made 
—  available  from  South  America,  Africa,  Australia,  and 
Oceania,  yields,  however,  the  same  evidence. 

II INDIVIDUAL.  AUTHOKSHIP  AND   OWNERSHIP 

That  American  Indian  song  is  of  individual  composi- 
tion, not  the  product  of  group  improvisation,  much  evi- 
dence may  be  brought  to  support.  It  will  be  seen  also, 
from  the  illustrative  material  cited,  that  the  Indian  has  a 
feeling  of  private  ownership  in  his  song.  It  would  be  rea- 
sonable, therefore,  to  assume  that,  as  far  back  as  we  can 
go  in  primitive  society,  there  should  be  a  sense  of  individ- 
ual skill  in  song-making,  as  of  individual  skill  in  running, 
hurling  a  dart,  leaping,  or  any  other  human  activities. 
There  is  something  absurd  in  singling  out  musical  utter- 
ance as  the  one  form  of  expression  having  only  social  origin 
or  social  existence. 

A  large  number  of  Indian  songs  are  said  to  have  come 
into  the  mind  of  the  Indian  when  he  was  in  a  dream  or  a 
trance  (surely  not  a  "communal"  form  of  experience!). 

Many  of  the  Chippewa  songs,  for  example,  are  classified 
as  "  dream  songs."  Says  Miss  Densmore :  14 

Many  Indian  songs  are  intended  to  exert  a  strong  mental  in- 
fluence, and  dream  songs  are  supposed  to  have  this  power  in 
greater  degree  than  any  others.  The  supernatural  is  very  real 
to  the  Indian.  He  puts  himself  in  communication  with  it  by  fast- 
ing or  by  physical  suffering.  While  his  body  is  thus  subordinated 
to  his  mind  a  song  occurs  to  him.  In  after  years  he  believes  that 

14  Frances  Densmore,  Chippewa  Music,  I,  n.  Bulletin  45  (1910) 
and  53  (1913),  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology.  For  examples  see 
I,  pp.  118  ff.,  n,  pp.  37  ff.  Also  Teton  Sioux  Music,  Bulletin  61 
(1918),  p.  60. 


14  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETRY 

by  singing  this  song  he  can  recall  the  condition  under  which  it 
came  to  him  —  a  condition  of  direct  communication  with  the 
supernatural.15 

It  is  said  that  in  the  old  days  all  the  important  songs  were 
"  composed  in  dreams,"  and  it  is  readily  understood  that  the  man 
who  sought  a  dream  desired  power  superior  to  that  he  possessed. 
A  song  usually  came  to  a  man  in  his  "  dream  " ;  he  sang  this  song 
in  the  time  of  danger  or  necessity  in  the  belief  that  by  so  doing  he 
made  more  potent  the  supernatural  aid  vouchsafed  to  him  in  the 
dream.  Songs  composed,  or  received,  in  this  manner  were  used 
on  the  warpath,  in  the  practice  of  medicine,  and  in  any  serious 
undertaking  of  life.16 

Compare  also :  "  There  is  no  limit  to  the  number  of 
these  [ghost-dance  songs]  as  every  trance  at  every  dance 
produces  a  new  one,  the  trance  subject  after  regaining 
consciousness  embodying  his  experience  in  the  spirit 
world  in  the  form  of  a  song,  which  is  sung  at  the  next 
dance  and  succeeding  performance  until  superseded  by 
other  songs  originating  in  the  same  way.  Thus  a  single 
dance  may  easily  result  in  twenty  or  thirty  new  songs."  17 
Testimony  from  Australia  is  contributed  by  A.  W.  IIow- 
itt :  "  In  the  tribes  with  which  I  have  acquaintance,  I 
find  it  to  be  a  common  belief  that  the  songs,  using  that 
word  in  its  widest  meaning,  as  including  all  kinds  of 
aboriginal  poetry,  are  obtained  by  the  bards  from  the 
spirits  of  the  deceased,  usually  of  their  kindred,  during 
sleep,  in  dreams.  .  .  .  The  Birraark  professed  to  receive 
his  poetic  inspiration  from  the  Mrarts,  as  well  as  the  ac- 
companying dances,  which  he  was  supposed  to  have  seen 

is/6td!.,  i,  p.  118. 

IB  Ibid.,  n,  p.  16. 

IT  James  Mooney,  The  Ghost  Dance  Religion,  14  report  Bureau 
of  Ethnology,  Part  H  (1896),  p.  952.  Many  trance  songs  from 
many  tribes  are  given,  pp.  953-1101. 


INDIVIDUAL  AUTHORSHIP  15 

first  in  ghost  land.  ...  In  the  Narrang-ga  tribe  there  are 
old  men  who  profess  to  learn  songs  and  dances  from  de- 
parted spirits.  These  men  are  called  Gurildras.  ...  In 
the  Yuin  tribe  some  men  received  their  songs  in  dreams, 
others  when  waking."  Specimen  songs  are  cited.18 

There  is  also  abundant  testimony  as  to  private  owner- 
ship. The  following  is  from  Le  Jeune's  Relation  (1636)  : 
"  Let  us  begin  with  the  feasts  of  the  Savages.  They  have 
one  for  war.  At  this  they  sing  and  dance  in  turn,  accord- 
ing to  age;  if  the  younger  ones  begin,  the  old  men  pity 
them  for  exposing  themselves  to  the  ridicule  of  others. 
Each  has  his  own  song,  that  another  dare  not  sing  lest  he 
give  offense.  For  this  very  reason  they  sometimes  strike 
up  a  tune  that  belongs  to  their  enemies  to  aggravate 
them."  19  Of  the  Melanesians  of  British  New  Guinea  we 
are  told  that  their  songs  and  dances  are  "  strictly  copy- 
right." "  The  only  legitimate  manner  for  people  to  ob- 
tain the  right  to  a  dance  or  song  not  their  own  was  to  buy 
it."  20  Private  ownership  of  songs  prevails  also  among 
the  American  Indians. 

i*The  Native  Tribes  of  South-East  Australia,,  London  (1904),  p. 
416. 

ifl  Jesuit  Relations,  Thwaites  ed.  Vol.  IX,  p.  111. 

20  C.  G.  Seligman,  The  Melanesians  of  British  New  Guinea  (1910), 
p.  151.  George  Browne,  Melanesians  and  Polynesians  (1910)  p. 
451. 

There  are  many  testimonies  to  the  existence  of  other  primitive 
artists  beside  the  poet.  Among  the  primitive  Kwai  or  Bushmen,  a 
strong  sense  of  individual  talent  in  artistry  is  said  to  exist.  "  The 
old  Bushmen  assert  that  the  productions  of  an  artist  were  always 
respected  as  long  as  any  recollection  of  him  was  preserved  in  his 
tribe:  during  this  period  no  one,  however  daring,  would  attempt  to 
deface  his  paintings  by  placing  others  over  them.  But  when  his 
memory  was  forgotten,  some  aspirant  after  artistic  fame  appro- 
priated the  limited  rock  surface  of  the  shelter,  adapted  for  such  a 


16  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETKY 

The  Chippewa  have  no  songs  which  are  the  exclusive  property 
of  families  or  clans.  Any  young  man  may  learn  his  father's 
songs,  for  example,  by  giving  him  the  customary  gift  of  tobacco, 
but  he  does  not  inherit  the  right  to  sing  such  songs,  nor  does 
his  father  force  him  to  learn  them.21 

We  learn  further  that  the  healer  combines  music  and 
medicine.  "  If  a  cure  of  the  sick  is  desired,  he  frequently 
mixes  and  rolls  a  medicine  after  singing  the  song  which 
will  make  it  effective."  22  And  that  "  The  songs  of  a 
Chippewa  doctor  cannot  be  bought  or  sold."  23 

So  far  as  the  two  men  who  heard  me  were  concerned,  the 
argument  was  convincing,  but  there  lingered  even  with  them  a 
reluctance  to  help  me  with  certain  songs  because  they  belonged 
to  other  persons.  Nearly  all  the  Indians  of  my  acquaintance  rec- 
ognize this  proprietary  interest  in  songs.  A  has  no  right  to  sing 
B's  songs;  B  did  not  compose  them,  but  they  came  down  to  him 
through  his  family,  or  from  some  chief  who  fought  him,  and 
B  alone  should  say  whether  they  might  be  given  another.24 

Miss  Fletcher  writes  of  the  Omaha: 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  fancy  that  songs  floated  indiscrim- 
inately about  among  the  Indians,  and  could  be  picked  up  here 
and  there  by  any  chance  observer.  Every  song  had  originally 

display  of  talent,  for  his  own  performances,  and  unceremoniously 
painted  over  the  efforts  of  those  who  preceded  him.  If  we  calcu- 
late- that  the  memory  of  any  artist  would  be  preserved  among  his 
people  for  at  least  three  generations,  as  every  Bushman  tribe  prided 
itself  on  and  boasted  of  the  wall  decorations  of  its  chief  cave,  it 
would  give  a  probable  antiquity  of  about  five  hundred  years  to  the 
oldest  found  in  the  Invani  rock  shelter."  G.  W.  Stow,  The  Native 
Races  of  South  Africa  (1905),  pp.  26,  27. 

21  Chippewa  Music,  I,  p.  2. 

22  Ibid.,  I,  p.  20 

28  Ibid.,  p.   119.    See  also  Teton  Sioux  Music,  p.  60. 
2*  Burton,  American  Primitive'  Music,  p.   118. 


INDIVIDUAL  AUTHORSHIP  17 

its  owner.  It  belonged  either  to  a  society,  secular  or  religious,  to 
a  certain  clan  or  political  organization,  to  a  particular  rite  or 
ceremony,  or  to  some  individual.  .  .  .  The  right  to  sing  a  song 
which  belonged  to  an  individual  could  be  purchased,  the  person 
buying  the  song  being  taught  it  by  the  owner. 

These  beliefs  and  customs  among  the  Indians  have  made  it 
possible  to  preserve  their  songs  without  change  from  one  genera- 
tion to  another.  Many  curious  and  interesting  proofs  of  accuracy 
of  transmittal  have  come  to  my  knowledge  during  the  past  twenty 
years,  while  studying  these  primitive  melodies.  .  .  .  Close  and 
continued  observation  has  revealed  that  the  Indian,  when  he  sings, 
is  not  concerned  with  the  making  of  a  musical  presentation  to 
his  audience.  He  is  simply  pouring  out  his  feelings,  regardless 
of  artistic  effects.  To  him-  music  is  subjective:  it  is  the  vehicle 
of  communication  between  him  and  the  object  of  his  desire.25 

Now  a  few  testimonies  as  to  individual  authorship.  A 
first  instance  is  from  the  songs  of  the  Omaha.  For  the 
complete  story  of  this  song,  the  reader  is  referred  to  the 
Account  of  Miss  Fletcher: 

At  length  the  Leader  stood  up  and  said,  "  We  have  made  peace, 
we  have  come  in  good  faith,  we  will  go  forward,  and  Wa-kon'-da 
shall  decide  the  issue."  Then  he  struck  up  this  song  and  led  the 
way;  and  as  the  men  and  women  followed,  they  caught  the  tune, 
and  all  sang  it  as  they  came  near  the  Sioux  village.28 

25  Alice  C.  Fletcher,  The  Indian  in  Story  and  Song,  pp.  115-117. 

2«  Ibid.,  p.  22.  The  following  passage  from  A  Study  of  Omaha 
Indian  Music,  p.  25,  by  Alice  C.  Fletcher  and  Francis  LaFlesche, 
also  throws  light  on  the  composition  of  certain  Indian  songs: 

Like  the  Poo-g'-thun,  the  Hae-thu-ska  preserved  the  history  of 
its  members  in  its  songs;  when  a  brave  deed  was  performed,  the 
society  decided  whether  it  should  be  celebrated  and  without  this 
dictate  no  man  would  dare  permit  a  song  to  be  composed  in  his 
honor.  When  a  favorable  decision  was  given,  the*  task  of  composing 
the  song  devolved  upon  some  man  with  musical  talent.  It  has 
happened  that  the  name  of  a  man  long  dead  has  given  place  in  a 
popular  song  to  that  of  a  modern  warrior;  this  could  only  be  done 


18  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETKY 

Two  instances  from  the  Pawnee  illustrate  perfectly  the 
poet  musing  in  solitude  on  the  meaning  of  nature, —  like 
some  Pawnee  Wordsworth. 

The  "  Song  of  the  Bird's  Nest  "  commemorates  the  story 
of  a  man  who  came  upon  a  bird's  nest  in  the  grass : 

He  paused  to  look  at  the  little  nest  tucked  away  so  snug  and 
warm,  and  noted  that  it  held  six  eggs  and  that  a  peeping  sound 
came  from  some  of  them.  While  he  watched,  one  moved  and  soon 
a  tiny  bill  pushed  through  the  shell  uttering  a  shrill  cry.  At  once 
the  parent  birds  answered  and  he  looked  up  to  see.  where  they 
were.  They  were  not  far  off;  they  were  flying  about  in  search 
of  food,  chirping  the  while  to  each  other  and  now  and  then  calling 
to  the  little  ones  in  the  nest.  .  .  .  After  many  days  he  desired 
to  see  the  nest  again.  So  he  went  to  the  place  where  he  had 
found  it  and  there  it  was  as  safe  as  when  he  had  left  it.  But  a 
change  had  taken  place.  It  was  now  full  to  overflowing  with 
little  birds,  who  were  stretching  their  wings,  balancing  on  their 
little  legs  and  making  ready  to  fly,  while  the  parents  with  en- 
couraging calls  were  coaxing  the  fledglings  to  venture  forth. 
"  Ah !  "  said  the  man,  "  if  my  people  would  only  learn  of  the 
birds,  and  like  them,  care  for  their  young  and  provide  for  their 
future,  homes  would  be  full  and  happy,  and  our  tribe  strong 
and  prosperous." 

When  this  man  became  a  priest,  he  told  the  story  of  the  bird's 
nest  and  sang  its  song;  and  so  it  has  come  down  to  us  as  from 
the  days  of  our  fathers.27 

The  "  Song  of  the  Wren  "  was  made  by  a  priest  who 
noted  that  the  wren,  the  smallest  and  least  powerful  of  the 

by  the  consent  of  the  society,  which  was  seldom  given,  as  the 
Omahas  were  averse  to  letting  the  memory  of  a  brave  man  die, 
.  .  .  the  songs  were  transmitted  from  one  generation  to  another  with 
care,  as  was  also  the  story  of  the  deeds  the  songs  commemorated. 
27  The  Ealco,  A  Pawnee  Ceremony,  in  22nd  Report,  Bureau  of 
American  Ethnology,  Part  II,  p.  170.  See  also  The  Indian  in  Story 
and  Song,  p.  32,  and  Frances  Densmore,  Teton  Sioux  Music,  p.  59. 


INDIVIDUAL  AUTHOKSHIP  19 

birds,  excelled  them  all  in  the  fervor  of  its  song.  "  Here," 
he  thought,  "  is  a  teaching  for  my  people.  Everyone  can 
be  happy ;  even  the  most  insignificant  can  have  his  song  of 
thanks." 

So  he  [the  priest]  made  the  story  of  the  wren  and  sang  it; 
and  it  has  been  handed  down  from  that  day, —  a  day  so  long 
ago  no  man  can  remember  the  time.28 

Instances  testifying  to  individual  not  communal  compo- 
sition of  song  among  the  Chippewa  are  no  less  easily  cited. 

The  following  explanation  of  a  certain  song  was  given 
by  an  Indian : 

The  song  belonged  to  a  certain  man  who  sang  it  in  the  dances 
which  were  held  before  going  to  war.  When  this  man  was  a  boy 
he  had  a  dream  and  in  his  dream  he  heard  the  trees  singing  as 
though  they  were  alive:  they  sang  that  they  were  afraid  of  noth- 
ing except  being  blown  down  by  the  wind.  When  the  boy 
awoke  he  made  up  this  song,  in  which  he  repeats  what  he  heard 
the  trees  say.  The  true  meaning  of  the  words  is  that  there  is 
no  more  chance  of  his  being  defeated  on  the  warpath  than  there 
is  that  a  tree  will  be  blown  down  by  the  wind.29 

The  singer  stated  that  he  composed  this  song  himself  when  he 
was  a  child.  The  circumstances  were  as  follows :  His  mother  had 
gone  to  a  neighbor's,  leaving  him  alone  in  the  wigwam.  He 
became  very  much  afraid  of  the  owl,  which  is  the  particular 
terror  of  all  small  Indians,  and  sang  this  song.  It  was  just  after 
sugar  making  and  the  wigwams  were  placed  together  beside  the 
lake.  The  people  in  the  other  wigwams  heard  his  little  song. 
The  melody  was  entirely  new  and  it  attracted  them  so  that  they 
learned  it  as  he  sang.  The  men  took  it  up  and  used  it  in  their 
moccasin  games.  For  many  years  it  was  used  in  this  way, 

28  The  Hako,  pp.  171-172.  See  also  The  Indian  in  Story  and 
Song,  p.  56. 

20  Chippewa  Music,  i,  p.  126,  No.  112:  "Song  of  the  Trees." 


20  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETKY 

but  he  was  always  given  the  credit  of  its  composition.30 
The  rhythm  of  this  song  is  peculiarly  energizing,  and  when  once 
established  would  undoubtedly  have  a  beneficial  physical  effect. 
The  surprising  feature  of  this  case,  however,  is  that  the  song  is 
said  to  have  been  composed  and  the  rhythm  created  by  the  sick 
man  himself.31 

There  are  many  instances  of  individual  artistry  among 
the  Australians :  — 

"  The  makers  of  Australian  songs,  or  of  the  combined  songs 
and  dances,  are  the  poets,  or  bards,  of  the  tribe,  and  are  held  in 
great  esteem.  Their  names  are  known  in  the  neighboring  tribes, 
and  their  songs  are  carried  from  tribe  to  tribe,  until  the  very 
meaning  of  the  words  is  lost,  as  well  as  the  original  source  of 
the  song.  It  is  hard  to  say  how  far  and  how  long  such  a  song 
may  travel  in  the  course  of  time  over  the  Australian  continent."  32 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  many  Indian  songs  are 
composed  by  women.  The  following  are  instances: 

.  .  .  They  [the  women]  would  gather  in  groups  at  the  lodge 
of  the  Leader  of  the  war  party,  and  in  the  hearing  of  his  family 
would  sing  a  We'-ton  song,  which  should  carry  straight  to  the 
far-away  warriors  and  help  them  to  win  the  battle  .  .  .  The 

so  Ibid.,  p.  135,  No.  121 :  "  I  am  afraid  of  the  Owl." 
si  Ibid.,  p.  95,  No.  79 :  "  Healing  Song."  Compare  also  Franz 
Boas  on  The  Central  Eskimo,  Report  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  1884- 
1885,  p.  649:  "Besides  these  old  songs  and  tales  there  are  a  great 
number  of  new  ones,  and,  indeed,  almost  every  man  has  his  own 
tune  and  his  own  song.  A  few  of  these  become  great  favorites 
among  the  Eskimo  and  are  sung  like  our  popular  songs." 

32  A.  W.  Howitt,  The  Native  Tribes  of  South-East  Australia, 
London  (1904),  p.  414.  See  also  Kurburu's  song,  composed  and  sung 
by  a  bard  called  Kurburu,  p.  420.  Howitt  refers  to  one  man  who 
composed  when  tossing  about  on  the  waves  in  a  boat  —  not  a  very 
"  communal "  method  of  composition.  For  other  instances  of  in- 
dividual composition  see  George  Brown,  Melanesians  and  Polynesians 
(1910),  p.  423,  C.  G.  Seligman,  The  Melanesians  of  British  New 
Guinea  (1910),  pp.  152,  153,  etc. 


INDIVIDUAL  AUTHORSHIP  21 

We' -ton  song  here  given  was  composed  by  a  Dakota  woman.33 
It  is  said  that  the  following  [Chippewa]  song  was  composed 
and  sung  on  the  field  of  battle  by  a  woman  named  Omiskwa'- 
wegijigo'kwe  ("woman  of  the  red  sky."),  the  wife  of  the  leader, 
who  went  with  him  into  the  fight  singing,  dancing,  and  urging 
him  on.  At  last  she  saw  him  kill  a  Sioux.  Full  of  the  fire 
of  battle,  she  longed  to  play  a  man's  part  and  scalp  the  slain. 
Custom  forbade  that  Chippewa  women  use  the  scalping  knife, 
although  they  carried  the  scalps  in  the  victory  dance. 

Song 

at  that  time 
if  I  had  been  a  man 
truly 
a  man 
I  would  have  seized.34 

Odjib'we  [a  Chippewa]  stated  that  his  wife's  brother  was  killed 
by  the  Sioux  and  that  he  organized  a  war  party  in  return.  The 
purpose  of  the  expedition  was  to  attack  a  certain  Sioux  village 
located  on  an  island  in  Sauk  river,  but  before  reaching  the  village, 
the  Chippewa  met  a  war  party  of  Sioux,  which  they  pursued, 
killing  one  man.  There  were  nine  Chippewa  in  Odjib'we's  party; 
not  one  was  killed.  They  returned  home  at  once  and  Odjib'we 
presented  the  Sioux  scalp  to  his  wife  Dekum  ("across")  who 
held  it  aloft  in  the  victory  dance  as  she  sung  the  following  song. 

Odjib'we 
our  brother 
brings  back.35 

33  Fletcher,  Indian  Story  and  Song,  Weton  Song,  pp.  81,  85. 

So  also  in  the  Omaha  tribe :  "  We'tonwaan  is  an  old  and  untrans- 
latable word  used  to  designate  a  class  of  songs  composed  by  women 
and  sung  exclusively  by  them." — Fletcher  and  LaFlesche,  The 
Omaha  Tribe,  27th  Report,  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  p.  421; 
cf.  pp.  320—323  for  other  types  of  women's  songs. 

s*  Chippewa  Music,  n,  p.  Ill,  No.  31:     "  If  I  Had  Been  a  Man." 

35  Ibid.,  p.  121,  No.  39:  Song  of  IVkum.  Several  other  songs 
composed  by  Dekum  are  given. 


22  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETRY 

Thomas  Whiffen  quotes  a  song  made  by  a  Boro  chief- 
tain's daughter,  a  complaint  of  her  treatment  by  her  own 
tribe,  having  the  iterative  lines  — 

The  chief's  daughter  was  lost  in  the  bush 
And  no  one  came  to  find  the  spoor.36 

Much  farther  evidence  of  the  composition  of  songs  by 
women  might  be  cited.37 

Excellent  testimony  on  the  questions  of  individual  com- 
position, the  refrain,  and  the  relation  of  the  composer  to 
the  chorus  comes  from  the  Andamese.38  "  When  an  An- 
damese  wishes  to  make  a  new  song  he  waits  till  he  feels 
inspired  to  do  so,  and  will  then,  when  alone  and  engaged 
on  some  occupation,  sing  to  himself  till  he  has  hit  on  a 

so  The  North-West  Amazons    (1915),  p.   197. 

s?  Compare  Franz  Boas,  Chinook  Lays,  p.  224,  Journal  of  American 
Folk-Lore,  1888:  "The  greater  part  of  those  I  have  collected  were 
composed  by  women."  He  adds  that  for  a  greater  number  of  tunes 
the  "  text  is  only  a  meaningless  burden."  For  songs  of  the  Kiowa 
composed  by  a  woman,  see  J.  W.  Mooney,  The  Ghost-Dance  Religion, 
14  Report,  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  Part  n,  1896,  pp.  1083,  1085,  etc. 
See  also  an  article  of  interest  by  Alexander  F.  Chamberlain,  Primi- 
tive Woman  as  Poet,  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  xvi 
(1903),  pp.  207  ff.;  Biicher,  Arbeit  und  Rhythmus  (1899),  ch.  viii, 
p.  339,  "  Frauenarbeit  und  Frauendichtung  " ;  J.  C.  Andersen,  Maori 
Life  in  Ao-Tea  (1907),  p.  500. 

R.  H.  Codrington  writes  of  the  Melanesians  (The  Melanesians: 
Studies  in  Their  Anthropology  and  Folk-Lore,  Oxford,  1891,  p. 
334):  "A  poet  or  poetess  more  or  less  distinguished  is  probably 
found  in  every  considerable  village  throughout  the  islands;  when 
some  remarkable  event  occurs,  the  launching  of  a  canoe,  a  visit  of 
strangers,  or  a  feast,  song-makers  are  engaged  to  celebrate  it  and 
rewarded,"  etc. 

ss  Pointed  out  by  Professor  F.  N.  Scott,  Modern  Language  Notes, 
April  1918.  See  M.  V.  Porter,  Notes  on  the  Language  of  the  South 
Andaman  Group  of  Tribes,  Calcutta  (1898),  p.  67. 


INDIVIDUAL  AUTHORSHIP  23 

solo  and  refrain  which  takes  his  fancy,  and  then  improves 
it  to  his  taste.  His  composition  would  ordinarily  refer  to 
some  recent  occurrence  by  which  he  had  been  affected," 
"  At  a  dance  the  soloist  stands  at  the  dancing-board  and 
(often  in  a  falsetto  voice)  sings  his  solo  and  the  refrain. 
(If  he  has  sung  the  solo  in  falsetto,  his  voice  will  drop 
an  octave  at  the  refrain).  If  the  chorus  grasp  the  re- 
frain at  once,  they  sing  it ;  if  they  do  not  grasp  it,  the  solo- 
ist will  repeat  it  two  or  three  times  till  the  chorus  is  able 
to  take  it  up."  "The  solo  is  sung  amid  general  silence, 
and  the  dance  commences  with  the  refrain,  being  also 
accompanied  by  a  clapping  of  hands  and  thighs,  and  the 
stamping  of  the  soloist's  foot  on  the  sounding  board." 

The  preceding  are  specimen  testimonies.  They  might 
be  added  to  indefinitely  from  many  sources.  In  accounts 
of  African,  Australian,  or  South  American  tribes,  as  well 
as  of  the  North  American  Indians,  one  comes  invariably 
upon  the  instance  of  the  individual  who  makes  a  song  — 
very  often  in  solitude  —  and  the  song  is  recognized  as 
his.  The  great  mass  of  primitive  songs  sung  in  com- 
munal or  other  gatherings  are  either  portions  of  religious 
rituals,  didactic,  or,  still  oftener,  magical  in  nature.  Far 
from  being  improvised  for  the  occasion,  they  are  sedu- 
lously repeated  verbatim,  the  least  deviation  from  the  rote 
form  being  the  occasion,  not  infrequently,  of  an  entire 
recommencement  of  the  ceremony.  Ramon  Pane  gives  the 
following  testimony  concerning  the  Haytians :  39  "  They 
have  all  the  superstitions  reduced  into  old  songs,  and  are 
directed  by  them,  as  the  Moors  by  the  Alcoran.  When 
they  sing  these,  they  play  on  an  instrument  made  of  wood. 
...  To  that  music  they  sing  those  songs  they  have  got 

39  In  Ferdinand  Coliunbu8?»  Life  of  Christopher  Colufnbus,  ch.  14. 


24: 

by  heart.  The  chief  men  play  on  it  who  learn  it  from 
their  infancy,  and  so  sing  it  according  to  their  custom." 
Substantially  the  same  account  is  given  by  Peter  Martyr 
d'Anghrera :  40  "  When  the  Spanish  asked  whoever  had 
infected  them  with  this  mass  of  ridiculous  beliefs,  the 
natives  replied  that  they  received  them  from  their  an- 
cestors, and  that  they  had  been  preserved  from  time  im- 
memorial in  poems  which  only  the  sons  of  chiefs  were  al- 
lowed to  learn.  These  poems  are  learned  by  heart,  for  they 
have  no  writing,  and  on  feast  days  the  sons  of  chiefs  sing 
them  to  the  people  in  the  form  of  sacred  chants."  Thomas 
Whiffen,  writing  of  the  Amazonians,41  speaks  of  "  the 
traditional  songs  of  the  tribes  which  are  sacred  and  un- 
changeable." "  They  are  the  songs  that  their  fathers  sang, 
and  one  can  find  no  evidence  of  the  amendation  or  emenda- 
tion of  the  score  on  the  part  of  their  descendants."  "  The 
dance,  like  the  tobacco  palaver,  is  a  dominant  factor  in 
tribal  life.  For  it  the  Amazonian  treasures  the  songs  of 
his  fathers,  and  will  master  strange  rhymes  and  words  that 
for  him  no  longer  have  meaning ;  he  only  knows  that  they 

40  De  Orbe  Novo,  English  trans,  by  MacNutt,  New  York  (1912), 
vol.  i,  p.  172. 

For  the  North  American  Indians,  see,  for  example,  Washington 
Matthews,  Navaho  Legends,  Memoirs  of  the  American  F oik-Lore 
Society,  1897.  An  account  of  Navaho  traditional  songs  is  given 
pp'.  23-27.  See  also  note  273,  p.  254,  Navaho  Music,  by  Prof.  J.  C. 
Fillmore.  Miss  Fletcher  gives  similar  testimony  concerning  Indian 
traditional  lays. 

«  The  North-West  Amazons  (1915),  pp.  208,  190.  See  also  The- 
odor  Koch-Griinberg,  Zwei  Jahre  unter  den  Indianern:  Reisen  in 
Nordwest  Brasilien,  1903-1905.  2  vols.,  Berlin,  1910.  "Die  Texte 
die  dem  Aruak  und  dem  Kobeua  angehoren  sind  offenbar  uralt  und 
waren  von  den  Sangern  teilweise  selbst  nicht  mehr  zu  deuten," 
vol.  n,  p.  131. 


INDIVIDUAL  AUTHORSHIP  25 

are  the  correct  lines,  the  phrases  he  ought  to  sing  at  such 
functions,  because  they  have  always  been  sung,  they  are 
the  words  of  the  time-honored  tribal  melodies." 

Songs  composed  and  sung  by  individuals  and  songs  sung 
by  groups  of  singers  (or  "  throngs,"  if  you  prefer)  are  to 
be  found  in  the  most  primitive  of  living  tribes.  That  in 
the  earliest  stage  there  was  group  utterance  only,  arising 
from  the  folk-dance,  is  fanciful  hypothesis.  That  primi- 
tive song  is  of  group  composition  or  collaboration,  not  in- 
dividual composition,  is  quite  as  fanciful.  Again,  as  far 
back  as  we  can  go  in  the  genesis  of  song-craft,  there  are 
impromptu  songs,  the  spontaneous  utterance  of  present 
emotion,  and  there  are  traditional  songs,  survivals  or  re- 
vivals of  the  songs  of  the  past.42  Among  primitive  peo- 
ples there  is  no  such  indissoluble  connection  between  sing- 
ing and  dancing  as  the  italicized  observations  of  Dr.  Ehr- 
enreich  are  supposed  to  imply.  Neither  dancing  nor  song 
is  invariably  "  choric  "  in  savage  any  more  than  in  civil- 
ized society.  Solo  dancing,  for  example,  has  been  reported 
among  the  Semang  of  Perak,  the  Kwai,  and  the  Anda- 
manese,  as  well  as  among  the  American  Indians  and  num- 
erous other  peoples.  Koch-Griinberg  mentions  a  dance 
among  tribes  north  of  the  Japura  where  the  men  and  the 
women  dance  together  in  pairs.  As  for  solo  singing,  the 
citations  given  speak  for  themselves.43  Even  when  the 

42  Improvisation    exists    among   the    Obongo,    Australian,    Fijiian, 
Andamanese,  Zulu,  Botocudo,  and  Eskimo  tribes,  as  well  as  among 
the  North  American  Indians.     For  an  example  of  song  and  dance 
improvisation  constituting  a  sort  of  game,  see  Whiffen,  The  North- 
West  Amazons,  p.  208.     Traditional  songs  persist  among  the  Kwai, 
Australian,    Andamanese,    Rock    Vedda,    Semang,    Fijiian,    Fuegian, 
Brazilian,  and  Eskimo  tribes,  as  well  as  among  the  North  American 
Indians. 

43  See  also  citations  in  note  49. 


26  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETRY 

singing  is  choral,  it  is  by  no  means  always  dance-song,  nor 
accompanied  by  dancing.  The  Kaffirs  are  said  to  be  fond 
of  singing  lustily  together,  but,  if  we  may  trust  the  obser- 
vation, "  a  Kaffir  differs  from  an  European  vocalist  in 
this  point,  namely,  that  he  always,  if  possible,  sits  down 
when  he  sings."  44  Surely  these  recumbent  Kaffirs  deserve 
italics  as  much  as  Dr.  Ehrenreich's  Botocudos.45 

44  J.  E.  Wood,  Uncivilized  Races  of  the  World  (Amer.  ed.,  Hart- 
ford,  1870),  p.  208. 

45  We  really  know  very  little  concerning  the  songs  of  the  Boto- 
cudos.    Dr.   Ehrenreich's   section   dealing  with   them    is   very   short, 
and  he  is  chiefly  interested  in   other  things  than   song.     These  are 
the  specimens  he  cites: — Gesang  beim   Tanz.     Chor:    "  Weib   Jung, 
stehlen  nichts."     Ein  Weib  singt:     "  Ich,  ich  will  nicht   (stehlen)." 
"  Der  Hauptling  hat  keine  Furcht  " —  Zeitschrift  fur  Ethnologic,  vol. 
xix,   pp.    33,   61. 

Testimony  concerning  the  songs  of  other  Brazilian  tribes  may  be 
found  in  J.  B.  Steere's  Narrative  of  a  Visit  to  the  Indian  Tribes 
of  the  Purus  River,  Annual  Report  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution, 
1901,  pp.  363-393.  The  following  are  songs  of  the  Hypurinas 
( cannibals ) ,  and  are  individualistic  in  character :  "  The  leaf  that 
calls  my  lover  when  tied  in  my  girdle"  (Indian  girl's  song)  ;  "I 
have  my  arrows  ready  and  wish  to  kill  you " ;  "  Now  no  one  can 
say  I  am  not  a  warrior.  I  return  victorious  from  the  battle " ; 
"  I  go  to  die,  my  enemy  shall  eat  me." 

The  following  are  some  songs  of  the  Paumari,  a  "  humble  cow- 
ardly people  who  live  in  deadly  fear  of  the  Hypurinas " ;  "  My 
mother  when  I  was  little  carried  me  with  a  strap  on  her  back.  But 
now  I  am  a  man  I  don't  need  my  mother  any  more  " ;  "  The  Toucan 
eats  fruit  in  the  edge  of  my  garden,  and  after  he  eats  he  sings  " ; 
"  The  jaguar  fought  with  me,  and  I  am  weary,  I  am  weary."  The 
following  they  call  the  song  of  the  turtle:  "I  wander,  always  wan- 
der, and  when  I  get  where  I  want  to  go,  I  shall  not  stop,  but  still 
go  on." 

Hunting  songs  of  the  Bakairf,  of  the  Xingu  river  region,  egoistic 
in  character,  are  cited  by  Dr.  Max  Schmidt,  Indianerstudien  in 
Zentralbrasilien,  Berlin,  1905,  pp.  421-424. 

The  "  I  "  of  these  songs  of  South  American  tribes  cannot  always 


THE  BALLAD  AS  AN  EAKLY  FORM   27 

The  conception  of  individual  song  can  be  shown  to  exist 
among  the  very  lowest  peoples.  Professor  Gummere's  be- 
lief is  that  human  beings  get  together  for  rhythmic  move- 
ment, begin  to  sing,  and  thus  song  is  born.  But  the  same 
savage  tribes  that  sing  in  groups  tell  stories  in  which  indi- 
vidual songs  appear.  Among  the  myths  of  the  wilder 
tribes  of  Eastern  Brazil,40  for  example,  there  are  many  in 
which  the  composition  and  singing  of  songs  by  individuals 
form  important  incidents.  This  fact  shows  plainly  that 
the  authors  of  these  myths  were  perfectly  familiar  with 
the  conception  of  individual  composition.  Granting  the 
manifestations  of  primitive  singing  and  dancing  throngs 
which  seem  so  decisive  to  many  scholars,  they  are  capable 
of  quite  other  interpretations  than  those  which  are  usually 
assigned  them. 

Ill THE    "  BAXLAD  "    AS    THE    EARLIEST    POETIC    FORM 

And  now  what  truth  is  in  the  assumption  that  the 
ballad-dance  is  the  germ  from  which  emerged  the  three 
separate  arts,  poetry,  music,  dance  ?  A  passage  by  Profes- 
sor Moulton,  affirming  this,  has  been  cited,  and  this  pas- 
sage presents  without  doubt,  a  view  now  widely  accepted. 
The  opinion  is  prevalent  among  folk-lorists  and  students 
of  literature  that  since  ballads  come  down  to  us  by  tradi- 
tion, they  represent  poetry  in  its  most  primitive  form. 

be  "racial."  The  context  shows  that,  sometimes,  at  least,  it  must 
be  egoistic,  as  in  the  individualistic  songs  of  the  North  American 
Indians,  or  in  the  solo  songs  of  men  or  women  with  grievances 
among  the  Brazilian  cannibals.  See  Whiffen,  The  North-West 
Amazons,  pp.  196,  197,  etc. 

4«  Illustrated  in  O  Selvagem,  the  well-known  collection  of  Jos6 
V.  Couto  de  Magalha.es. 


28  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETKY 

We  are  told  that  ballads  can  best  be  studied  by  studying 
the  poetry  of  races  least  civilized.47 

Let  us  ask,  first,  in  what  sense  the  word  "  ballad  "  is 
used  by  those  who  derive  poetry  from  it.  Does  Professor 
Moulton,  for  example,  use  the  word  ballad  in  its  etymologi- 
cal sense  of  "  dance  song,"  leaving  undetermined  the  char- 
acter of  the  words,  whether  meaningless  vocables,  purely 
lyrical,  or  prevailingly  narrative  ?  Usually  the  classifica- 
tion "  ballad  "  is  employed  of  lyric  verses  having  a  narra- 
tive element.  By  "  ballad  "  we  are  supposed  to  mean  a 
narrative  song,  a  story  in  verse,  a  short  narrative  told 
lyrically.  It  is  a  loose  usage  which  permits  scholars  to 
use  the  word  in  the  sense  both  of  dance  song  and  of  lyrical 
narrative,  in  the  same  work;  the  ambiguity  is  unneces- 
sary.48 If  ballad  means  something  like  dance  song,  or 
choral  dance,  or  folk-dance  accompanied  by  improvisation 
and  refrain,  the  term  ballad-dance  is  tautological ;  for  all 
ballads  involve  dancing.  One  wishes  for  more  precision. 
But  this  need  not  detain  us  here. 

*7  Professor  W.  H.  Hudson,  for  example,  in  An  Introduction  to 
the  Study  of  Literature  (1911),  p.  138,  speaks  of  the  ballads  as 
"  poetry  of  primitive  models."  He  refers  to  the  ballad,  p.  136, 
as.  representing  "  one  of  the  earliest  stages  in  the  evolution  of 
the  poetic  art."  So  Professor  W.  M.  Hart,  English  Popular  Ballads 
(1916),  p.  51,  "Ballads  are  the  one  great  and  significant  survival 
of  ...  early  universal  poetry."  Professor  Gummere  assures  us 
(Old  English  Ballads,  p.  Ixxxiv)  that  "the  so-called  narrative  lyric, 
or  ballad  in  stricter  sense,  was  the  universal  form  of  poetry  of  the 
people." 

48  In  which  sense,  for  example,  does  Professor  G.  P.  Krapp  ( The 
Rise  of  English  Literary  Prose,  1915,  Preface)  use  "ballad"  when 
he  writes,  "  Poetry  of  primitive  origins,  for  example,  the  ballad, 
often  attains  a  finality  of  form  which  art  cannot  better,  but  not  so 
with  prose"? 


THE  BALLAD  AS  AN  EARLY  FORM   29 

In  whichever  sense  the  term  ballad  be  used,  it  is  some- 
what rash  to  place  the  ballad  dance  so  certainly  at  the 
source  of  man's  musical  and  poetical  expression.  We  have 
just  seen  that  there  is  individual  composition  and  singing, 
song  unaccompanied  by  dancing,  and  dance  unaccom- 
panied by  song,  as  far  down  in  the  cultural  scale  as  we 
can  go.  Certainly  if  ballad  means,  as  usually  it  does, 
song-story,  the  ballad  was  not  the  earliest  form  of  poetry ; 
and  primitive  people  never  danced  to  ballads.  The  earli- 
est songs  we  can  get  track  of  are  purely  lyrical,  not 
narrative.  The  melody  is  the  important  thing ;  the  words, 
few  in  number  and  sometimes  meaningless,  are  relatively 
negligible.  Moreover,  these  songs  are  on  many  themes,  or 
have  many  impulses  beside  festal  dances.  There  are  heal- 
ers' songs,  conjurers'  songs,  hunting  songs,  game-songs, 
love  songs,  hymns,  prayers,  complaints  or  laments,  vic- 
tory songs,  satires,  songs  of  women  and  children,  and  lyrics 
of  personal  feeling  and  appeal.  The  lullaby  is  an  old 
lyric  form.  Who  cares  to  affirm  that  lullabies  were  un- 
known to  our  aboriginal  ancestors?  Yet  the  lullaby  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  singing  and  dancing  throng.  !Nor 
has  that  other  very  early  species,  the  medicine  man  or 
healer's  solos;  nor  have  gambling  or  game  songs,49  or 

49  See  Stewart  Culin,  Games  of  the  North  American  Indian,  24 
Report,  Bureau  of  Ethnology  (1907),  for  an  account  of  singing 
in  the  Moccasin  or  Hidden-Ball  game,  pp.  335  S.  Mention  is  made 
of  solo  singing  among  the  Chippewa,  the  Menominee,  the  Miami, 
the  Seneca,  the  Wyandot.  See  also  Edward  Sapir,  Song  Recitative 
in  Paiute  Mythology,  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore  (1910),  p. 
455,  vol.  xxiii:  "Generally  Indian  music  is  of  greatest  significance 
when  combined  with  the  dance  in  ritualistic  or  ceremonial  perform- 
ances. Nevertheless  the  importance  of  music  in  non-ceremonial 
acts  .  .  .  should  not  be  minimized." 


30  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETRY 

love  songs.50  Primitive  labor  songs  are  social,  but  they 
do  not  involve  dancing,  though  some  may  have  a  certain 
relation  to  it,  and  they  are  not  ballads.  The  class  that 
is  nearest  the  real  ballad,  in  that  it  is  based  on  happenings, 
or  on  the  composer's  experiences,  is  not  by  any  means 
the  largest  or  the  most  important  group  for  primitive 
song.  Songs  of  this  latter  type  may  be  suggested  by  some 
event,  or  may  present  some  situation;  but  they  tell  no 
story  in  the  sense  of  real  telling.  That  demands  length, 
elaboration,  completeness,  beyond  primitive  powers.  If 
we  try  to  fix  chronology,  it  is  most  plausible  to  begin  with 
rhythmic  action  and  with  melody.  Professor  Gummere 
thinks  that  melody  is  born  of  rhythmic  action.  But  vocal 
action  of  the  singing  type,  i.  e.,  melody,  may  well  be 
as  instinctive  in  man  as  in  birds.  Action  and  melody 
in  singing  may  well  have  come  together;  for  song  inter- 
There  are  solo-singing  Bantu,  Zulu,  Fuegian,  etc.,  witch-doctors 
and  medicine  men,  as  well  as  solo-singing  North  American  Indian 
medicine  men  and  gamesters.  See  also,  for  instances  of  solo 
singing,  H.  A.  Junod,  Les  Chantes  et  les  Contes  des  Ba-Ronga, 
Lausanne,  1897;  also  G.  Landtman,  The  Poetry  of  the  Kiwai 
Papuans,  Folk-Lore,  vol.  xxiv  (1913);  Howitt,  The  Native  Tribes 
of  South-East  Australia;  James  Cowan,  The  Maoris  of  ~New  Zea- 
land; E.  H.  Gomes,  Seventeen  Years  Among  the  Sea  Dyaks  of  Borneo, 
as  "  The  song  of  mourning  is  among  some  tribes  sung  by  a  profes- 
sional waller,  generally  a  woman." 

so  According  to  Whiffen,  love  songs,  sacred  songs,  and  nursery 
songs  do  not  exist  among  the  Boros,  The  North-West  Amazons 
(1915),  p.  208.  But  they  are  known  among  other  tribes,  though 
they  play  no  conspicuous  role,  from  the  nature  of  things.  See  the 
references  for  primitive  love  songs  and  childhood  songs  in  Mackenzie, 
The  Evolution  of  Literature,  pp.  140,  144,  etc.  They  are  known 
among  the  North-American  Indians.  See  Frances  Densmore,  Teton 
Sioux  Music,  pp.  370  ff.,  509,  492,  493  (lullaby);  also  many  other 
writers  on  Indian  song. 


THE  BALLAD  AS  AN  EAKLY  FORM   31 

prets  primarily  feeling,  emotion,  not  motion.  In  any 
case,  words  came  later  than  melody,  and  real  narrative 
later  yet.  As  a  lyrical  species,  the  narrative  song  is  a  late, 
not  an  early,  poetical  development.  If  we  look  at  what 
certain  evidence  we  have,  primitive  songs  are  very  brief, 
the  words  are  less  important  than  the  music,  indeed  they 
need  hardly  be  present;  and  they  rarely  tell  a  story. 
No  instances  are  known  to  me  in  which  a  primitive  song 
tells  a  story  with  real  elaboration  or  completeness.  Nor 
need  these  songlets  always  have  their  origin  in  the  choral 
—  specifically  in  the  improvisation  and  communal  elabora- 
tion of  a  festal  dance.  Why,  then,  apply  the  term  ballad 
to  the  brief  and  simple  lyrical  utterances,  often  nothing 
more  than  the  repetition  of  a  few  syllables,  or  of  one 
syllable,  which  —  according  to  the  evidence  —  make  up 
the  great  body  of  primitive  song  ? 

But  it  is  time  to  bring  up  a  few  illustrations. 

First  place  may  well  be  given  to  the  words  of  Miss  Alice 
Fletcher,  who  has  had  thirty-five  years  of  acquaintance 
with  Indian  music : 

The  word  "song"  to  our  ears,  suggests  words  arranged  in 
metrical  form  and  adapted  to  be  "  set  to  music,"  as  we  say.  The 
native  word  which  is  translated  "  song "  does  not  suggest  any 
use  of  .words.  To  the  Indian,  the  music  is  of  primal  importance, 
words  may  or  may  not  accompany  the  music.  When  words  are 
used  in  a  song,  they  are  rarely  employed  as  in  a  narrative,  the 
sentences  are  not  apt  to  be  complete.  In  songs  belonging  to  a 
religious  ceremony  the  words  are  few  and  partake  of  a  mnemonic 
character.  They  may  refer  to  some  symbol,  may  suggest  the 
conception  or  the  teaching  the  symbol  stands  for,  rarely  more 
than  that.  Vocables  are  frequently  added  to  the  Word  or  words 
to  eke  out  the  musical  measure.  It  sometimes  happens  that 
a  song  has  no  words  at  all,  only  vocables  are  used  to  float  the 


32  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETRY 

voice.  Whether  vocables  alone  are  used  or  used  in  connection 
with  words,  they  are  never  a  random  collection  of  syllables.  An 
examination  of  hundreds  of  songs  shows  that  the  vocables  used 
fall  into  classes;  one  class  is  used  for  songs  denoting  action,  an- 
other class  for  songs  of  a  contemplative  character,  and  it  is  also 
noted  that  when  once  vocables  are  adapted  to  a  song  they  are 
never  changed  but  are  treated  as  if  they  were  actual  words.51 

She  writes  elsewhere  to  the  same  effect : 

In  Indian  song  and  story  we  come  upon  a  time  when  poetry 
is  not  yet  differentiated  from  story  and  story  not  yet  set  free 
from  song.  We  note  that  the  song  clasps  the  story  as  part  of  its 
being,  and  the  story  itself  is  not  fully  told  without  the  cadence 
of  the  song.  .  .  .  The  difference  between  spontaneous  Indian 
melodies  and  the  compositions  of  modern  masters  would  seem  to 
be  not  one  of  kind  but  of  degree.  .  .  .  Many  Indian  songs  have 
no  words  at  all,  vocables  only  being  used  to  float  the  voice.52 

The  investigator  of  Ojibway  song  also  finds  the  melody 
to  be  more  important  than  the  words,  and  has  nothing  to 
say  of  an  inevitable  relation  between  dancing  and  song.53 

His  [the  Ojibway]  poetry  is  not  only  inseparable  but  indistin- 
guishable from  music.  .  .  .  Among  all  civilized  peoples  the  art 
of  expression  through  verse  is  one  thing,  and  the  art  of  expression 
through  modulated  tones  is  quite  another,  linked  though  they 
often  are  by  the  deliberate  intent  of  the  composer,  and  always  as- 
sociated in  the  popular  mind;  in  the  Ojibway  conception  the 
two  arts  are  not  merely  linked  inseparably,  they  are  fused  in 
one.  .  .  . 

The  Ojibway  is  more  gifted  in  music  than  in  poetry;  he  has 
wrought  out  a  type  of  beautiful  melody,  much  of  it  perfect  in 
form;  his  verse,  for  the  most  part,  has  not  emerged  from  the 
condition  of  raw  material. 

si  The  Study  of  Indian  Music,  1915,  pp.  231-232. 

52  Indian  Story    and   Song,  pp.    121,    124,    125. 

53  Burton,  American  Primitive  Music,  pp.    106,   172,   173. 


He  does  sing  his  new  melody  to  meaningless  syllables,  tenta- 
tively correcting  it  here  and  there,  but  meantime  experimenting 
with  words  that  convey  meaning;  and  the  probability  is  that  the 
precise  sentiment  of  the  words  finally  accepted  is  established  by 
rhythmic  considerations,  those  that  fall  readily  into  the  scheme 
of  accents  appealing  to  him  as  the  most  suitable  vehicle  for  the 
melody. 

The  melody  and  the  idea  are  the  essential  parts  of  a  Mide  song. 
Sometimes  only  one  or  two  words  occur  in  a  song.  .  .  .  Many  of 
the  words  used  in  a  Mide  song  are  unknown  in  the  conversational 
Chippewa  of  the  present  time.54 

A  number  of  Chippewa  songs,  as  transcribed,  have  no  words. 
Some  of  these  songs  originally  may  have  had  words  and  in  a 
limited  number  of  love  songs  the  words  partake  so  much  of  the 
nature  of  a  soliloquy  that  they  cannot  conveniently  be  translated 
and  given  with  the  music.  The  words  of  most  of  the  Chippewa 
songs  are  few  in  number  and  suggest  rather  than  express  the 
idea  of  the  song.  Only  in  the  love  songs  and  in  few  of  the 
Mide  songs  are  the  words  continuous. 

Many  tribes  other  than  the  North  American  Indians 
appear  to  have  songs  which  they  can  no  longer  interpret. 
The  survival  in  song  of  words  the  meaning  of  which  is  lost 
is  world-wide.  We  are  told  of  the  savage  tribes  of  New 
Guinea  that  "  Most  of  the  songs  are  without  words  or  with 
words  the  meaning  of  which  is  lost."  55  Koch-Griinberg 
says  that  there  are  old  dances  among  the  Tukano  with 
words  no  longer  understood."  56  The  same  testimony  is 

s*  Frances  Densmore,  Chippewa  Music,  I  (1910),  pp.  14,  15,  and 
II  (1913.),  p.  2.  Similarly  Washington  Matthews,  Journal  of  Ameri- 
can Folk-Lore,  1894,  p.  185,  writes  of  traditional  songs  among  the 
Navahos,  "  One  song  consists  almost  exclusively  of  meaningless  or 
archaic  vocables.  Yet  not  one  syllable  may  be  forgotten  or  mis- 
placed." 

ss  Henry  Newton,  In  Far  New  Guinea    (1914),  p.   147. 

i  Jahre  unter  den  Indianern,  etc.   (1910),  vol.  n,  p.  254. 


34  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  POETKY 

made  concerning  the  Naga  tribes,  the  Australian  natives, 
the  Zulu,  and  Brazilian  tribes.57 

Such  evidence  may  be  multiplied  indefinitely.  The 
brevity  of  Indian  songs  is  striking.  Many  have  few  words, 
some  one  word,  and  some  no  words.  The  songs  of  other 
savage  peoples  show  the  same  characteristic.  There  are 
one-word  traditional  poems  among  the  African  Kwai,  and 
two-word  traditional  poems  of  the  Botocudos  and  the  Es- 
kimos. These  are  not  narrative  songs,  and  they  need 
not  be  dance  songs;  for  savage  peoples  do  not  always 
dance  their  verses.  They  are  not,  then,  "  ballads."  Nor 
need  they  have  any  relation  to  choral  improvisation. 

Literary  historians  have  dwelt  too  much,  it  seems  to 
me,  on  the  festal  throng  and  communal  improvisation 
and  the  folk-dance,  when  dealing  with  the  "  beginnings 
of  poetry,"  until  the  whole  subject  has  been  thrown  out 
of  focus.  The  term  ballad  might  well  be  left  out  of 
account  altogether  and  reserved  for  the  lyric  species,  ap- 
pearing late  in  literary  history,  the  "  epic  in  little,"  or 
"  short  narrative  told  lyrically  "  exemplified  in  the  con- 
ventional ballad  collections.  If  we  are  to  mean  by  ballads 
narrative  songs  like  those  of  the  middle  ages,  or  narrative 
songs  wherever  they  appear,  we  should  certainly  cease 
placing  the  ballad  at  the  source  of  primitive  poetry.  The 
conception  of  a  ballad  as  something  improvised  more  or 
less  spontaneously  by  a  dancing  throng  should  be  given 
up.  Even  savage  peoples  do  not  compose  characteristically 
in  that  way.  And  even  among  savage  peoples,  the  pres- 

57  T.  Hodson,  The  Naga  Tribes  of  Manipur  (1911),  p.  68;  B. 
Spencer  and  F.  J.  Gillen,  The  Native  Tribes  of  Central  Australia 
(1899),  p.  281;  H.  Callaway,  Religious  Systems  of  the  Amazulu, 
etc.  (1870);  Whiffen,  The  North-West  Amazons,  pp.  190,  208. 


THE  BALLAD  AS  AN  EARLY  FORM       35 

ence  of  refrains  need  not  "  point  straight  to  the  singing 
and  dancing  throng."  It  is  not  proved  that  the  ballad, 
in  any  sense,  came  first,  or  even  that  choral  songs  pre- 
ceded solos.  It  is  likely  enough  that  choral  songs  and 
solos  co-existed  from  the  beginning,  or  even  that  solos 
preceded,  for  all  that  can  be  certainly  known.  The  as- 
sumption that  group  power  to  sing,  to  compose  songs,  and 
to  dance,  precedes  individual  power  to  do  these  things,58 
is  fatuously  speculative.  It  rests  neither  on  "  overwhelm- 
ing evidence  "  nor  on  probability.  The  individual  ought 
to  be  able  to  engage  in  rhythmic  motion,  to  compose  tunes, 
and  then  to  evolve  words  for  these  tunes,  at  least  as  early 
as  he  is  able  to  do  these  things  along  with  others  of  his 
kind.  And  let  it  be  said  again  that  it  is  safer  to  affirm 
that  the  primitive  lyric,  whether  individual  or  choral,  is  not 
the  ballad  but  the  song  —  more  strictly,  the  songlet. 

OB  Erich  Schmidt  ( "  Anfange  der  Literatur,"  p.  9,  in  Kultur  der 
Gegenwart,  Leipzig,  1906,  i)  writes:  .  .  .  schon  weil  keine  Masse 
nur  den  einfachsten  Satz  unisona  iinprovisieren  kann  und  allc 
romantischen  Schwarmereien  von  der  urheberlos  singenden  "  Volks- 
seele "  eitel  Dunst  sind,  muss  sich  Sondervortag  und  Massenaus- 
bruch  sehr  frtih  gliedern.  Einer  schreit  zuerst,  einer  singt  und 
springt  zuerst,  die  Menge  macht  es  ihm  nach,  entweder  treulich 
oder  indem  sie  bei  unartikulierten  Refrains,  bei  einzelnen  Worten, 
bei  wiederkehrenden  Satzen  beharrt. 

In  this  connection,  since  it  deserves  to  be  cited  somewhere,  may 
be  quoted  a  passage  from  von  Humboldt :  "  The  Indians  pretend 
that  when  the  araguatos  [howling  monkeys]  fill  the  forests  with 
their  howling,  there  is  always  one  that  chants  as  leader  of  the 
chorus." — A.  von  Humboldt,  Travels  vn  the  Equinoctial  Regions  of 
America,  Bohn  edition,  vol.  n,  p.  70. 


CHAPTEK  II 
THE   MEDIEVAL  BALLAD  AND   THE   DANCE 

If  the  ballad,  whether  defined  as  dance  song  or  as 
narrative  lyric,  is  not  the  archetypal  poetic  form,  pre- 
serving the  model  of  primitive  song,  if  it  did  not  originate, 
more  specifically  than  other  lyric  verse,  in  the  festal  dance 
songs  of  primitive  peoples,  is  it  not,  at  least,  to  be  asso- 
ciated with  the  dances  or  the  dance  songs  of  the  Middle 
Ages  ?  Such  association  is  customary.  The  primary  defi- 
nition of  the  English  ballad,  in  English  dictionaries  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  is  "  dance  song."  The  etymology  of 
the  name  makes  linkage  of  the  ballad  with  the  dances  of 
mediaeval  times  practically  inevitable.  A  few  quotations 
will  make  clear  the  present  state  of  opinion. 

The  leading  American  writer  on  ballads  in  recent  times, 
Professor  F.  J.  Gummere,  affirmed,  "  But  there  is  neither 
hurry  nor  compact  narrative  in  the  real  ballad,  so  named 
not  because  it  was  sung  at  a  dance  but  because  it  was  a 
dance,  a  dramatic  situation,  unchanged  in  bulk  and  plan, 
but  shifting  its  parts  in  tune  with  these  until  a  climax  is 
attained."  *  According  to  Professor  G.  L.  Kittredge,  "  It 
appears  that  there  is  no  lack  of  characteristic  traits  .  .  . 
which  justify  the  conjecture  that  the  history  of  balladry,  if 
we  could  follow  it  back  in  a  straight  line  without  inter- 
ruptions would  lead  us  to  a  very  simple  condition  of 

i  Democracy  and  Poetry  (1911),  p.  191. 

36 


THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE     37 

society,  to  the  singing  and  dancing  throng,  to  a  period  of 
communal  composition."  2  Professor  Henry  Beers  wrote, 
"  It  should  never  be  forgotten  that  the  ballad  .  .  .  was  not 
originally  a  written  poem  but  a  song  and  dance."  3  More 
qualification  characterizes  the  words  of  Professor  Charles 
S.  Baldwin,  "  They  [the  ballads]  may  have  been  originally 
dance  songs  with  communal  refrain."  "  Bride-stealing,  a 
situation  often  told  in  ballads,  may  in  some  far  off  day 
have  been  half  presented,  half  represented  by  a  dancing 
chorus  and  villagers,  singing  one  detail  after  another  and 
iterating  a  common  refrain."  4 

To  pass  from  American  opinion  to  British,  that  excel- 
lent ballad  scholar,  Professor  W.  P.  Ker,  writes,  "  The 
proper  form  of  the  ballads  is  the  same  as  the  carole,  with 
narrative  substance  added.  Anything  will  do  for  a  ring 
dance,  either  at  a  wake  in  a  churchyard  or  in  a  garden. 
...  At  first  a  love  song  was  the  favorite  sort,  with  a 
refrain  of  douce  amie,  and  so  on.  .  .  .  The  narrative 
ballad  was  most  in  favor  where  people  were  fondest  of 
dancing.  The  love-song  or  the  nonsense  verses  could  not 
be  kept  up  so  long ;  something  more  was  wanted,  and  this 
was  given  by  the  story;  also  as  the  story  was  always 
dramatic,  more  or  less,  with  different  people  speaking,  the 
entertainment  was  all  the  better."  "  The  old  Teutonic 
narrative  poetry  may  have  grown  out  of  a  very  old  ballad 
custom,  where  the  narrative  element  increased  and  grad- 

2  Kittredge  and  Sargent,  English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads 
(1904),  Introd.  p.  xxii. 

» English  Romanticism  in  the  XVIII  Century  (1898),  p.  270. 
Professor  Beers's  discussion,  in  this  volume,  of  the  English  and  Scot- 
tish ballads,  their  content  and  special  qualities,  is  very  suggestive 
and  stimulating. 

4  English  Medieval  Literature  (1914),  pp.  237,  242. 


38      POETIC  OEIGINS  AND  THE  BALLAD 

ually  killed  the  lyric,  so  that  recitation  of  a  story  by  a 
minstrel  took  the  place  of  the  dancing  chorus."  In  the 
following  passage  he  suggests  a  specific  development :  — 

Probably  the  old  ballad  chorus  in  its  proper  dancing  form  was 
going  out  of  use  in  England  about  1400.  Barbour,  a  contem- 
porary of  Chaucer,  speaks  of  girls  singing  "  ballads "  "  at  their 
play";  Thomas  Deloney  in  the  time  of  Elizabeth  describes  the 
singing  of  a  ballad  refrain;  and  the  game  lives  happily  still, 
in  songs  of  London  Bridge  and  others.  But  it  becomes  more  and 
more  common  for  ballads  to  be  sung  or  recited  to  an  audience 
sitting  still;  ballads  were  given  out  by  minstrels,  like  the  min- 
strel of  Chevy  Chase.  Sometimes  ballads  are  found  swelling 
into  something  like  a  narrative  poem;  such  is  the  famous  ballad 
of  Adam,  Bell,  dim  o'  the  Clough,  and  William  of  Cloudeslee.5 

W.  T.  Young  summarizes  as  follows :  "  Scholars  are 
coming  to  the  conclusion  that  they  [the  ballads]  originated, 
as  their  refrains  seem  to  indicate,  in  a  song  accompanied 
by  dancing  and  a  chorus,  not  unlike  the  French  Carole."  6 
Mr.  T.  !\  Henderson,  a  keen  and  sane  ballad  scholar,  like 
Professor  K'er,  cannot  concede  that  the  ballad  had  its 
origin  in  individual  peasant  improvisation  nor  that  it  was 

s English  Literature:  Mediaeval  (1912).  Home  University  Li- 
brary edition,  pp.  159,  161,  164.  It  is  difficult  to  concede  that  Bar- 
hour's  "ballads"  (probably  ballades  or  love  songs)  give  evidence 
bearing  on  the  lyric-epic  type  now  known  as  the  traditional  ballad. 
And  if  the  Deloney  "  ballad  refrain  "  survives  in  games  and  songs, 
not  in  ballads,  it  would  seem  to  reinforce  the  inference  (see  pp.  55, 
65)  that  mediaeval  dance  songs  in  England  and  mediaeval  lyric- 
epics  or  ballads  proper  were  not  the  same  species,  therefore  not  of 
identical  origin.  Support  is  lent,  not  to  the  theory  that  the  earlier 
dance  songs  developed  into  ballads  of  the  Child  type,  but  to  the 
inference  that  the  two  were  distinct  in  origin  and  destiny. 

•  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  English  Literature  (1914).  Based 
on,  and  an  introduction  to  The  Cambridge  History  of  English  Liter- 
ature. 


THE  NAME  BALLAD  39 

the  creation  of  rural  dancing  throngs,  but  he  admits  that 
it  might  have  borne  some  relation  to  dancing  of  more 
aristocratic  type.  "  This  kind  of  ballad  [the  serious 
lyric-epic]  for  its  full  effectiveness  as  a  song  or  recital 
called  in  originally  the  aid  of  a  chorus,  and,  probably,  of 
the  dance,"  ".  .  .  it  often  added  to  the  emotional  impres- 
sion by  the  device  of  the  refrain  sung  by  a  chorus,  and  at 
one  time  probably  danced  as  well  as  sung."  Elsewhere 
he  speaks  of  "  The  earlier  ballads  sung  probably  to  the 
dance,  or  at  least  made  to  be  sung  with  choral  effect."  7 

In  the  following  pages  it  is  proposed  to  canvass  the  evi- 
dence for  the  definition  of  ballads  as  dance  songs,  or 
rather  for  the  assumption  of  dance-song  origin  for  ballads, 
and  to  make  inquiry  as  to  its  validity.  Particular  refer- 
ence is  had  to  the  English  and  Scottish  ballad  type. 


I THE    NAME    "  BALLAD  " 

Much  of  the  confusion  in  scholarly  and  literary  discus- 
sion of  the  English  and  Scottish  ballads  and  their  Ameri- 
can descendants  or  analogues,  rests  on  ambiguous  and 
contradictory  usages  of  the  word  "  ballad."  It  has  been 
employed  for  as  many  lyric  types  as  were  "  sonnet "  and 
"  ode,"  and  it  has  hardly  yet  settled  down  into  consistent 
application.  The  popular  use  of  the  word  for  a  short 
song,  often  sentimental  in  character,  or  for  the  music  for 
such  a  song,  is  clear  enough ;  but  its  most  recently  de- 
veloped meaning  of  narrative  song,  currently  employed  by 
literary  historians,  is  only  now  assuming  initial  place  in 
the  dictionaries.8  It  is  this  newly  developed  usage  which 

7  The  Ballad  in  Literature  (1912),  pp.  6,  8,  87,  95. 

8  Although   the   meaning   narrative   song  gained    headway    in  the 


40     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

has  brought  confusion.  For  though  the  shifts  in  meaning 
of  the  term  "  ballad  "  have  often  been  noted  and  traced, 
clarity  or  consistency  in  its  employment  have  not  followed, 
even  among  the  tracers.  They  distinguish  what  they 
mean  by  ballad  clearly  enough;  but  they  lose  sight  of 
their  own  distinctions  when  they  come  to  theorizing  about 
their  material.  Within  the  last  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  the  name  has  been  restricted,  among  specialists,  to 
a  type  of  English  song  to  which  it  did  not  belong  originally, 
and  a  type  which  is  not  called  by  that  name  in  other 
languages,  save  when  the  usage  has  been  carried  over  from 
the  English.9  The  etymology  of  "  ballad  "  should  not  be 
given  undue  weight,  since  the  attachment  of  the  name  to 

eighteenth  century,  it  was  not  very  clearly  recognized  in  the  New 
English  Dictionary,  1888.  The  entry  given  fifth  place  is  "  A  simple 
spirited  poem  in  short  stanzas,  originally  a  '  ballad '  in  sense  3 
[popular  songs  —  often  broadsides]  in  which  some  popular  story  is 
graphically  narrated.  (This  sense  is  essentially  modern.)"  The 
New  Webster  International,  1910,  also  gives  this  meaning  fifth 
place,  but  contributes  clarity :  "  A  popular  kind  of  short  narrative 
poem  adapted  for  singing;  especially  a  romantic  poem  of  the  kind 
characterized  by  simplicity  of  structure  and  impersonality  of  author- 
ship." In  The  Standard  Dictionary,  1917,  is  entered  as  the  first 
meaning  of  the  word :  "  A  simple  lyrical  poem  telling  a  story  or 
legend,  usually  of  popular  origin;  as  the  ballad  of  Chevy  Chase." 
Here  the  older  order  of  definition  is  reversed,  recognizing  the  change 
established  long  before  in  usage. 

9  The  Danish  name  for  pieces  of  the  English  ballad  type  is  folke- 
viser.  The  Spanish  name  is  romances.  The  German  usage  of  Bal- 
lade follows  the  English;  German  poets  derived  much  of  their  bal- 
ladry from  England.  The  name  is  applied  to  short  poems  in  which 
the  narrative  element  is  as  important  as  the  lyrical.  See  F.  A. 
Brockhaus,  Konversations- Lexicon,  Berlin  and  Vienna,  1894.  Pieces 
of  the  English  lyric-epic  type  have  no  specific  name  in  French. 
They  are  grouped  under  the  large  class  of  chansons  populaires,  a 
name  as  inclusive  as  our  "  folk-song."  But  see  also  note  13. 


THE  NAME  BALLAD  41 

the  material  which  it  describes  is  recent.  Over-emphasis 
upon  its  etymology,  and  the  double  and  triple  senses  in 
which  contemporary  scholars  use  the  term,  have  puzzled 
and  misled  many  earnest  students.  Writers  who  insist 
that  they  have  clearly  in  mind  what  they  mean  sometimes 
apply  the  name  "  ballad  "  to  dance  songs,  sometimes  to 
narrative  songs,  sometimes  to  pure  lyrics,  and  sometimes 
to  all  three. 

Ballad  is  derived  from  ballare,  to  dance,  and  historically 
it  means  dancing  song ;  it  is  associated  etymologically  with 
ballet,  a  form  of  dance.  In  the  Komance  language^,  from 
which  the  word  issued  into  general  European  currency,  it 
came  to  apply  to  various  types  of  lyrics.  The  French  and 
Italian  pieces  taking  the  name,  or  various  forms  of  it,  are 
genuinely  lyrical ;  they  are  to  be  associated  with  dance 
origins,  and  they  do  not  narrate  happenings  or  suggest 
action.  Many  were  used,  it  is  certain,  as  dance  songs.10 
To  be  a  folk-ballad,  not  merely  a  folk-song,  an  English 
piece  must  tell  a  story.  Poems  of  the  type  of  Rossetti's 
Sister  Helen  or  Straiton  Water,  or  Longfellow's  The 
Wreck  of  the  Hesperus,  are  termed  tl  literary  "  ballads, 
as  over  against  anonymous  traditional  ballads,  like  Sir 
Patrick  Spens.  The  name  ballad,  meaning  primarily,  as 
we  have  seen,  a  dance-lyric  is  not  entirely  satisfactory  for 
these  lyric-epics.  It  gained  its  distinctive  application  by 
chance  rather  than  by  historic  right,  and  it  gained  this 
application  late.  Owing  partly  to  the  etymology  of  the 
name,  partly  to  the  hypotheses  of  certain  critics,  who  asso- 
ciate the  origin  of  the  English  and  Scottish  pieces  with 
the  choral  dances  of  medieval  festal  communes,  ballads 

10  Dante,  for  example,  assigns  ballata  a  lower  plane  than  song 
proper  or  sonnet  on  account  of  its  dependence  on  the  aid  of  dancers. 


42     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

of  the  type  collected  by  Professor  F.  J.  Child  have  come 
to  be  associated  with  the  dance  to  a  degree  which  the  evi- 
dence does  not  justify.  The  dance  is  given  place  in  the 
foreground,  as  essential  in  denning  the  type  and  its  origin, 
instead  of  being  made  something  remote  and  subsidiary. 
For  the  Child  pieces,  the  etymology  of  the  name  should 
be  given  little  or  no  emphasis ;  insistence  on  it  is  likely  to 
be  misleading.  In  fact,  dance-genesis  has  more  imme- 
diate connection  with  English  lyrics  of  many  other  types, 
in  the  consideration  of  which  we  are  not  asked  to  have  it 
constantly  before  us,  than  it  has  with  the  English  ballads ; 
for  instance,  with  the  ballade,  or  the  rondeau* 

The  name  "  ballad  "  was  not  applied  specifically  to 
heroic  or  romantic  narrative  songs  until  the  eighteenth 
century.  Thomas  Deloney,  in  the  age  of  Elizabeth,  re- 
ferred to  The  Fair  Flower  of  Northumberland  and  to 
Flodden  Field  as  "  songs."  Sidney  speaks  of  the  "  old 
song  "  of  The  Percy  and  the  Douglas.  Pepys  uses  the 
same  term  for  narrative  songs.  Philip's  New  World  of 
English  Words  ll  defines  "  ballad  "  as  "  a  Common  Song 
sung  up  and  down  the  streets."  In  Dr.  Johnson's  Dic- 
tionary "  ballad  "  means  "  song  "  and  nothing  more.  It 
was  Eitson  who  first  stated  the  distinction  that  now  obtains. 
"  With  us,  songs  of  sentiment,  expression,  or  even  descrip- 
tion, are  properly  called  songs,  in  contradistinction  to  mere 
narrative  pieces,  which  we  now  denominate  ballads."  12 
For  several  centuries  earlier  the  name  had  been  applied 

"Sixth  edition,  1705. 

12  Introduction  to  his  Select  Collection  of  English  Songs,  3  vols., 
2nd  edition,  1813.  Shenstone  and  Michael  Bruce  had  expressed  the 
distinction  earlier  (see  S.  B.  Hustvedt,  Ballad  Criticism  in  Scandi- 
navia and  Great  Britain,  1916,  p.  254),  but  it  was  first  publicly 
enunciated  by  Ritson. 


THE  NAME  BALLAD  43 

with  miscellaneous  reference.  It  might  be  given  to  a 
short  didactic  poem,  a  love  poem  (as  sometimes  now),  to 
poems  of  satire  and  vituperation,  to  political  pieces,  to 
hymns  and  religious  pieces,  to  elegiac  pieces,  occasionally 
to  narrative  pieces ;  in  short,  to  lyrics  of  any  type.  Thus 
its  specific  application  to  verse  of  the  Child  type  came  late 
and  not  by  inheritance,  but  arbitrarily.  Nor  did  the  ety- 
mology of  the  name  play  any  part  in  the  selection  of  it 
for  the  pieces  to  which  it  was  applied. 

It  will  be  sufficient  to  sketch  in  summary  here  the  stages 
of  development  for  English  in  the  usage  of  the  name 
ballad.13 

When  Chaucer  uses  the  term  ballad  it  is  for  lyrics  of 
the  fixed  type  imported  from  the  French,  the  Balade  de 
Bon  Conseyl,  or  Lak  of  Stedfastnesse,  or  the  Compleynt 
to  His  Empty  Purse,  not  to  lyric-epics.14  Ballad  was 
long  used  of  dance  songs  of  various  types,  as  a  few 

is  The  entries  in  The  New  English  Dictionary  have  been  referred 
to.  Fourteen  pages  of  matter  illustrative  of  the  history  of  ballade 
are  given  in  Larousse's  Grand  Dictionnaire  Universel  du  xix 
Si&cle,  Paris  (1867),  ranging  from  the  first  entry  "chanson  a 
danser  "  to,  "  Aujourd'hui,  ode  d'un  genre  familier  et  le  plus  souvent 
legendaire  et  fantastique:  les  ballades  de  Schiller,  de  Goethe,  etc." 
Nothing  is  said  of  a  narrative  element.  But  see  especially  Helen 
Louise  Cohen,  The  Ballade,  Columbia  University  Studies  in  English 
and  Comparative  Literature,  New  York,  1915.  According  to  Miss 
Cohen,  the  word  is  used  in  contemporary  French  in  the  way  in 
which  it  has  come  to  be  used  in  English  and  in  German.  "  In 
France,  at  the  present  time,  the  same  word,  ballade,  serves  for  the 
English  or  Scottish  popular  ballad  and  for  a  certain  kind  of  narra- 
tive poem,  written  in  imitation  of  German  authors  like  Uhland,  as 
well  as  for  the  artificially  fixed  lyric  poem."  The  usages  of  "  bal- 
lad "  for  English  have  been  traced  by  Professor  Gummere,  Old  Eng- 
lish Ballads,  pp.  xviii  ff. 

i*  An  excellent  example  of  his  usage  is  found  in  the  Prologue  to 


44     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

citations  will  show ;  e.  g.,  these  lines  from  Dunbar's  Golden 
Targe,  of  about  1500 : 

And  sang  ballettes  with  mighty  notes  clere, 
Ladyes  to  daunce  full  sobirly  assayit. 

Ascham  writes  in  1545, 15  "  these  balades  and  roundes, 
these  galiardes,  pauanes  and  daunces."  A  passage  in 
George  Gascoigne's  Certain  Notes  of  Instruction,  1575, 
is  very  specific.  He  thinks  of  the  term  mainly  in 
Chaucer's  sense: 

There  is  also  another  kinde,  called  Ballade,  and  therof  are 
sundrie  sortes:  for  a  man  may  write  ballade  in  a  staffe  of  sixe 
lines,  every  line  conteyning  eighte  or  sixe  sillables,  wherof 
the  firste  and  third,  second  and  fourth  do  rime  acrosse,  and  the 
fifth  and  sixth  do  rime  togither  in  conclusion.  You  may  write 
also  your  ballad  of  tenne  syllables,  rimying  as  before  is  declared, 
but  these  two  were  wont  to  be  most  comonly  used  in  ballade, 
whiche  propre  name  was  (I  thinke)  derived  of  this  worde  in 
Italian  Ballare,  whiche  signifieth  to  daunce,  and  indeed,  those 
kinds  of  rimes  serve  beste  for  daunces  and  light  matters. 

Ben  Jonson,  in  Love  Restored,  writes  "  Unless  we  should 
come  in  like  Morrice-dancers  and  whistle  our  ballet  our- 
selves." All  these  citations  show  loose  reference  to  ama- 
tory songs,  and  dance  songs,  lyrical,  not  narrative  in  char- 
acter. The  word  is  also  applied  to  pieces  of  the  various 
types  enumerated  at  the  end  of  the  preceding  paragraph. 
Cotgrave's  Dictionary  of  the  French  and  English  Tongues, 
1611,  associates  the  word  with  dance  song.  Burton  writes, 

The  Legend  of  Good  Women,  where  he  has  his  characters  dance  in  a 
circle  "  as  it  were  in  carole-wise "  while  they  sang  the  ballade  — 

"  Hyd,   Absolon,  thy  gilte  tresses  clere." 
is  Toxophilus,  Arber  ed.,  p.  39. 


THE  NAME  BALLAD  45 

Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  m,  1,  i,  "  Castalio  would  not  have 
young  men  read  the  Canticles  because  to  his  thinking  it 
was  too  light  and  amorous  a  tract,  a  ballad  of  ballads,  as 
our  old  English  translation  hath  it."  Percy,  as  often 
pointed  out,  employs  ballad  in  his  Reliques  with  miscella- 
neous application.  Eitson's  contribution  toward  estab- 
lishing the  word  in  its  latest  meaning  has  been  quoted 
already.  Coleridge's  use  is  modern  when  he  writes  of 
"  The  grand  old  ballad  of  Sir  Patrick  Spens."  To  sum- 
marize the  stages  for  English: 

1.  Ballad  in  the  fourteenth  century  meant  the  French 
art  lyric  with  fixed  form.     The  name  could  be  given  to 
a  dance  song,  though  the  latter  was  more  often  called  a 
carol.     Ballad,  in  the  period  when  it  could  mean  dance 
song,  did  not  mean  "  narrative  lyric." 

2.  In  the  Elizabethan  period,  ballads,  ballets,  ballants, 
etc.,  are  terms  loosely  associated  with  song,  or  lyric  verse 
of  various  kinds.     The  name  could  be  applied  to  dance 
songs,   among  these  types   and,   though  infrequently,   to 
narrative  lyrics. 

3.  In  the  eighteenth  century,  ballad  continues  in  loose 
popular  usage.     With  specialists  it  comes  to  have  particu- 
lar reference  to  narrative  songs.     The  narrative   songs 
which  the  eighteenth  century  collected  were  not  dance 
songs,  and  they  are  not  the  pieces  called  by  cognate  names 
in  the  Eomance  languages,  from  which  ballad,  in  lyric 
nomenclature,  is  derived. 

4.  In  the  nineteenth  century,  ballad  continues  in  loose 
popular  reference  as  synonymous  with  song.     In  the  use 
of  specialists  it  is  increasingly  applied  to  narrative  songs ; 
by  the  twentieth  century,   this  has  become  the  primary 
meaning.     The  variant  ballade,  in  the  French  and  four- 


46  THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

teenth-century  English  sense,  is  revived,  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  with  the  re-introduction  of  the  fixed  lyric  type. 

This  sketch  should  have  made  clear  that  a  definition  of 
the  ballad  as  "  a  narrative  lyric  made  and  sung  at  the 
dance  and  handed  down  in  popular  tradition  "  is  not  war- 
ranted, for  English  ballads,  by  the  history  of  the  word. 
For  a  valid  etymological  argument  for  ballad  as  a  dance 
song,  one  would  have  to  derive  the  lyric-epic  species,  ballad, 
from  the  fixed  art  species,  the  ballade.  And  there  is  no 
sufficient  proof  that  narrative  lyrics  were  ever,  anywhere, 
at  any  time,  by  any  people,  made  and  sung  at  the  dance. 
The  dance  songs  of  primitive  peoples  are*  not  narrative, 
and  the  earliest  English  dance  songs  are  not  narrative. 
Nor  is  this  longer  definition,  also  Professor  Gummere's,16 
better.  "  The  popular  ballad,  as  it  is  understood  for  the 
purpose  of  these  selections,  is  a  narrative,  in  lyric  form, 
with  no  traces  of  individual  authorship,  and  is  preserved 
mainly  by  oral  tradition.  In  its  earliest  stages  it  was 
meant  to  be  sung  by  a  crowd,  and  got  its  name  from  the 
dance  to  which  it  furnished  the  sole  musical  accompani- 
ment." The  first  sentences  are  unimpeachable,  but  the 
last  is  not.  The  lyric  type  to  which  reference  is-  made 
did  not  get  its  name  until  the  late  eighteenth  century,  and 
then  took  it  by  borrowing  or  transference  from  songs  of 
another  character,  for  which  it  was  more  appropriate.  It 
could  not  have  taken  its  name  from  its  origin,  nor  is  its 
name  evidence  as  to  its  origin. 

is  In  The  Popular  Ballad  ( 1907 ) ,  pp.  75,  344,  etc.,  and  "  Ballads  " 
in  Warner's  Library  of  the  World's  Best  Literature.  "  Their  very 
name,"  we  are  reminded,  "  tells  of  external  origin  at  the  communal 
dance." 


DANCE  SONGS  PROPER  47 


II DANOE    SONGS    PROPER 

The  name  actually  given  in  England  to  dance  songs  of 
the  Middle  Ages  was  "  carol."  We  hear  of  carols  before 
we  hear-  of  ballads.  There  is  a  familiar  picture  of  a  high- 
born throng  singing  to  the  caroling  of  a  lady  in  the  Chau- 
cerian Romance  of  the  Rose: 

The  folk  of  which  I  telle  you  so, 
Upon  a  carole  wenten  tho. 

A  lady  caroled  hem  that  hyghte, 
Gladness  (the)  blisful,  the  lyghte  .  .  . 

743-6. 

Tho  mightest  thou  caroles  seen, 
And  folk   (ther)  daunce  and  mery  been 
And  make  many  a  fair  tourning 
Upon  the  grene  gras  springing  .  .  . 

759-62. 

The  description  is  continued,  802-15,  850-54,  and  on- 
wards, and  teaches  us  no  little  concerning  medieval  dance 
customs.  Other  passages,  illustrating  the  use  of  carol  for 
dance  song,  in  the  next  century,  might  be  multiplied.17 
Many  are  cited  in  the  dictionaries. 

Suppose  we  try  to  put  ourselves  back  into  the  old  world 

i*  Compare  Gawayn  and  the  Green  Knight :  "  This  King  Arthur 
lay  royally  at  Camelot  at  Christmas  tide  with  many  fine  lords,  the 
best  of  men,  all  the  rich  brethren  of  the  Round  Table,  with  right 
rich  revel  and  careless  mirth.  There  full  many  heroes  tourneyed 
betimes,  jousted  full  gaily;  then  returned  these  gentle  knights  to 
the  court  to  make  carols.  For  there  the  feast  was  held  full  fifteen 
days  alike  with  all  the  meat  and  the  mirth  that  men  could  devise. 
Such  a  merry  tumult,  glorious  to  hear;  joyful  din  by  day,  dancing 
at  night.  All  was  high  joy  in  hall  and  chambers  with  lords  and 
ladies  as  pleased  them  best." 


48     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

of  dance  songs.  What  kind  of  song  was  it  which  the  lady 
sang,  and  to  which  the  others  danced?  It  might  have 
been  a  ballade,  or  roundel,  or  "  virelai,"  or  some  type  of 
art  lyric,  with  fixed  refrain  of  regular  occurrence ;  for  such 
lyrics  were  used  for  dancing.18  Or  it  might  have  had 
greater  suggestion  of  animation  and  movement,  like  many 
examples  afforded  by  Old  French  verse;  19  or  it  might 
have  been  a  gay  love  lyric.  That  it  was  anything  like 
Xing  Estmere,  or  Thomas  Rymer,  or  Edward,  or  Lord 
Randal,  is  most  improbable.  And  when  peasant  throngs, 
as  over  against  aristocrats,  danced  in  feudal  times,  they 
did  not  dance,  as  I  believe,  to  pieces  of  the  lyric-epic  type 
just  mentioned.  Nor,  as  a  general  thing,  the  rule  rather 
than  the  exception,  did  they  dance  to  their  own  improvisa- 
tions. It  is  more  likely  that  they  danced  to  current  in- 
herited songs,  appropriate  for  dance  purposes,  with,  possi- 
bly enough,  a  bygone  vogue  in  higher  circles  behind  them ; 
that  is,  if  we  keep  the  analogies  of  existent  dance  songs 
before  us. 

The  following  lines  from  Gawain  Douglas  point  to  the 
dancing  of  his  characters  mostly  to  lyric  and  amatory 
matter:20 

Sum  sing  sangis,  dansis  ledys  and  roundis 
With  vocis  schill,  quhill  all  the  dail  resoundis 
Quharso  thai  walk  into  thar  carolyng 
For  amorus  lays  doith  the  Roches  ryng: 

is  See  the  quotation  from   Chaucer's  Prologue  to  the  Legend  of 
Good  Women,  note  14  preceding. 

19  See  the  ballettes,  in  Jeanroy's  Les  Origines  de  la  Poesie  Lyrique 
en  France  au  Moyen  Age;  and  his  letter,  cited  in  Miss  Cohen's  The 
Ballade,    p.    15;    also   Joseph    BMier,    Les   Plus   Anciennes    Danses 
Francoises,  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  Jan.  15,  1906,  p.  398. 

20  Mneid,  Prologue  of  Bk.  XII. 


DANCE  SONGS  PROPER  49 

And  sang,  'the  schyp  salys  our  the  salt  faym 
Will  bryng  thir  merchandis  and  my  lemman  haym ' ; 
Sum  other  syngis,  I  wil  be  blyth»and  lycht 
Mine  hart  is  lent  upon  so  gudly  wight. 

But  we  need  not  speak  speculatively  of  mediseval  dance 
songs.  Many  remain  to  us;  and  it  is  possible  to  derive 
from  them  pretty  clear  ideas  as  to  what  the  typical  ones 
were  like.  A  couplet  used  for  dance  purposes  remains 
from  the  twelfth  century.  Ritson 21  cites  from  Lam- 
barde's  Dictionary  of  England  this  anecdote :  "  In  tyme 
of  Hen.  II.  [anno  1173]  Robert  therl  of  Leycester  .  .  . 
purposed  to  spoile  the  town  and  thabbey  [of  St.  Edmundes 
Burye]  .  .  .  Now  while  his  gallauntes  paused  upon  the 
heathe,  they  fell  to  daunce  and  singe, 

"  Hoppe  Wylikin,  hoppe  Wyllykin, 
Ingland  is  thyne  and  myne,  etc." 

The  well-known  Sumer  is  icumen  in  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  might  have  been  a  dance  song  —  its  animation 
and  movement  would  make  it  appropriate;  and  welcomes 
to  spring,  when  dancing  on  the  green  or  in  the  grove  could 
be  resumed,  were  common  for  dance-song  usage  in  all  parts 
of  Europe.  A  classic  example  of  a  dance  song  is  that 
preserved  by  Fabyan  (1516),  celebrating  the  victory  of 
the  Scots  at  Bannockburn :  22 

21  Dissertation  on  Ancient  Songs  and  Music   (ed.  of  1829),  p.  xl. 
The  fragment  of  the  dance  song  is  to  be  found  in  Matthew  of  Paris's 
Historia  Anglorum  sive,  ut  vulgo  dicitur,  Historia  Minor.     Ed.  Sir 
F.    Madden,    Rolls    series    (1866),   vol.    I,    p.    381.     See    also   J.    F. 
Royster,  English  Tags  in  Matthew  of  Paris,  Modern  Language  Re- 
view, vol.  iv,  p.  509. 

22  Concordance  of  Histories. 


50          THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

Maydens  of  Englonde,  sore  may  ye  morne, 

For  your  lemmans  ye  have  loste  at  Bannockisborne  1 

With  a  hewe  a  lowe. 
What  wenyth  the  Kynge  of  Englonde 
So  soon  to  have  wonne  Scotlonde: 

With  a  nimby  lowe. 

This  song,  says  Fabyan,  "  was  after  many  days  sung  in 
dances,  in  caroles  of  the  maidens  and  minstrels  of  Scot- 
land." High-born  maidens  they  were,  too,  most  likely, 
not  peasants.  It  is  appropriate  for  a  dance  song.  It  is 
lyrical,  not  a  verse  story.  The  refrain  is  important,  and 
holds  it  together;  but  it  is  not  narrative.  It  is  nothing 
like  a  Child  piece,  and  never  became  like  one,  so  far  as 
there  is  evidence.23 

23  King  Cnut's  song  is  often  said  (Gummere,  Cambridge  History 
of  English  Literature,  vol.  n,  ch.  xvii,  The  Popular  Ballad,  pp.  58  ff, 
Old  English  Ballads,  p.  254 )  to  give  us  our  "  first  example  of 
actual  ballad  structure  and  the  ballad's  metrical  form  which  is  to 
be  met  in  English  records."  The  beginning  of  the  song  and  an  ac- 
count of  its  composition,  as  the  king's  boat  neared  Ely,  is  given 
in  the  Historia  Eliensis  of  1166.  But  whether  the  song  affords  valid 
illustration  of  ballad  history  turns  upon  whether  its  missing  lines 
are  epic  or  lyric,  i.e.,  whether  it  was  a  ballad  or  merely  a  song. 
There  is  no  proof  that  it  was  lyric-epic  in  character,  the  presence 
of  rhyme  and  the  strophe  structure  are  both  doubtful,  and  there 
is  no  proof  that  it  was  a  dance  song  (as  Professor  Gummere  assumed 
when  he  persistently  translated  the  chronicler's  in  choris  publice 
as  "  sung  in  their  dances  " ) ,  or  that  it  ever  came  to  be  used  as  such. 
Judging  from  the  chronicler's  account,  it  was  more  likely  to  have 
started  as  a  rowing  song.  Danish  folk  poetry  has  many  of  these. 
(See  rios.  124,  140,  460,  244,  399)  in  Grundtvig's  Denmark's  Gamle 
Volkeviser) .  The  king's  boat  would  be  no  appropriate  place  for  a 
festal  throng  to  dramatize  a  ballad ;  nor  is  the  refrain  "  Row, 
knights,  near  the  land,"  if  it  be  one,  a  suitable  refrain  for  a  dance 
song.  Cnut's  eong  comes  from  a  date  early  enough  to  illustrate 
ballad  origins,  but  it  is  of  doubtful  availability  for  the  communal- 
ists.  It  did  not  originate  in  the  dance  and  we  do  not  know  that 


DANCE  SONGS  PKOPER  51 

Here  are  two  songs  which  are  presumably  dance  songs, 
from  the  fifteenth  century,  the  first  unusually  spirited:  24 

Icham  of  Irlaunde, 
Am  of  the  holy  londe 
Of  Irlande; 
Good  sir,  pray  I  ye 
For  of  Saynte  Charite, 
Come  ant  daunce  wyt  me 
In  Irlaunde. 

The  second  also  sounds  suitable  for  its  purpose: 

Holi  with  his  mery  men  they 

can  daunce  in  hall; 
Ivy  &  her  ientyl  women  can 

not  daunce  at  all, 

But  lyke  a  meyne  of  bullokes 

in  a  water  fall 
Or  on  a  whot  seiner's  day 

Whan  they  be  mad  all. 

Nay,  nay,  ive,  it  may  not  be, 

iwis; 
For  holy  must  haue  the  mastry, 

as  the  maner  is. 

Neither  of  these  has  the  stanzaic  pattern  of  the  ballads. 
A  song  certainly  used  as  a  dance  song,  and  very  animated 
and  lyrical,  is  the  familiar  The  Hunt  is  Up  of  the  time  of 

it  was,  or  ever  became,  a  ballad  in  theme  and  structure.  If  it  was 
ever  used  as  a  dance  song,  it  was  long  after  it  was  composed  and 
at  the  time  when  —  to  conform  to  theories  concerning  it  —  it  should 
have  been  "  divorcing  itself  from  the  dance "  and  becoming  epic. 
See  King  Cnut's  Song  and  Ballad  Origins,  Modern  Language  Notes, 
March,  1919. 

2*  The  first  is  from  MS.  Rawlinson,  D.  913,  f.   1,  the  second  from 
MS.  Balliol,  354,  f.  229,  b. 


52     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

Henry  VIII.  The  lines  are  short,  and  they  throw  the 
hearer  into  the  dancing  mood.  Some  examples  of  Old 
English  dance  songs,  lively  and  appropriate  in  melody, 
coming  from  the  sixteenth  century,  are  given  in  Chappell's 
Old  English  Popular  Music.  An  especially  popular  one 
was  John,  Come,  Kiss  Me  Now. 

Jon  come  kisse  me  now,  now, 
Jon  come  kisse  me,  now, 
Jon,  come  kisse  me  by  and  by, 
and  make  no  more  adoW. 

The  following  is  a  Morris-dance  song  from  Nashe's  play 
of  Summer's  Last  Will  and  Testament :  — 

Trip  and  goe,  heave  and  hoe, 
Up  and  down,  to  and  fro, 
From  the  towne  to  the  grove 
Two  and  two,  let  us  rove, 
A-Maying,  a-playing; 
Love  hath  no  gainsaying, 
So  -merrily  trip  and  goe." 

None  of  these  genuine  dance  songs  cited  exhibits  the 
septenar  rhythm  of  the  ballads ;  indeed  neither  the  couplet 
form  of  the  older  ballads  nor  the  quartrain  form  of  the 
newer  seems  especially  appropriate  for  the  dance. 

Both  nobly-born  groups  from  castle  or  court  and  village 
peasant  groups  had  their  dance  songs  in  the  Middle  Ages ; 
but  surely  these  songs  were  not  contemporaneously  of 
identical  type ;  and  it  is  very  improbable  that  either  type 
was  the  Child  type.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  unmistakable 
testimony  as  to  the  use  of  lyrical,  song-like  pieces,  in 
England,  for  dance  songs.  Next  to  none  exists  —  not  to 


DANCE  SONGS  PKOPEK  53 

dwell  upon  their  smaller  intrinsic  appropriateness  —  for 
the  staple  use  of  narrative  songs  for  such  purpose. 

There  is  evidence,  from  recent  times,  that  in  a  few  cases 
well-known  Child  pieces  have  been  ritualized  into  dance 
songs.  W.  W.  Newell  speaks  of  Barbara  Allen  as  used  in 
"  play  party  "  games  in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century  in  England.  This  ballad  was  an  actress's  song, 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  when  we  first  hear  of  it.  Ac- 
cording to  Professor  Child,  The  Maid  Freed  from  the 
Gallows  has  known  game-song  usage.25  A  version  recov- 
ered in  Nebraska  of  The  Two  Sisters  has  obviously  been 
used  as  a  dance  song.  The  following  are  specimen 
stanzas : 

There  was  an  old  woman  lived  on  the  seashore 

Bow  down 
There  was  an  old  woman  lived  on  the  seashore, 

Balance  true  to  me 
And  she  had  daughters  three  or  four, 

Saying  I'll  be  true  to  my  love 
If  my  love  is  true  to  me  ... 

The  oldest  and  youngest  were  walking  the  seashore, 

Bow  down 
The  oldest  and  youngest  were  walking  the  seashore, 

Balance  true  to  me 
The  oldest  pushed  the  youngest  o'er, 

Saying  I'll  be  true  to  my  love 
If  my  love  is  true  to  me  ... 

Such  might  not  have  been  the  case,  yet  one  feels  as  though, 
if  any  of  these  pieces  had  been  orally  preserved  for  some 
generations  as  a  dance  song,  for  throngs  on  the  village 

25  See  also  Gilchrist  and  Broadwood,  Journal  of  the  Folk-Song  So- 
ciety, v,  pp.  228  ff. 


54  THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

green,  the  narrative  element  would  have  become  yet  more 
fragmentary  and  inconsequential  than  it  is  in  the  quoted 
dance-song  version  of  The  Two  Sisters;  the  refrain  mean- 
time assuming  greater  and  greater  prominence,  and  becom- 
ing the  stable  and  identifying  feature  of  the  song.  For 
dance  songs  proper,  preserved  in  tradition,  one  expects  a 
strong  refrain  formula  and  a  fading  or  utterly  absent  nar- 
rative element. 

That  the  Child  pieces  should  be  utilized,  though  infre- 
quently, as  dance  or  game  songs  is  not  to  be  wondered  at ; 
for  popular  songs  of  all  kinds  are  so  employed  occasionally, 
alongside  the  more  appropriate  inherited  dance  songs. 
Mediaeval  dancing  throngs,  like  their  descendants  now, 
were  no  doubt  likely  to  utilize  any  new  song  as  a  dance 
song;  as  The  Hunt  is  Up,  of  the  time  of  Henry  VIII, 
according  to  The  Complaynt  of  Scotland  (1549).  We  are 
told  that  in  the  fast-dying-out  play-party  or  ring-dance 
songs  of  our  own  rural  communities,  songs  like  John 
Brown  s  Body,  Captain  Jinks,  Little  Brown  Jug,  and  the 
negro  minstrel  Jim  along  Jo,  or  Buffalo  Gals,  have  been  so 
used.  Indeed,  the  minstrel  Old  Dan  Tucker  has  died  out 
of  memory  as  a  minstrel  song,  and  has  been  kept  alive  as 
a  ring-game  song.  But  if  the  Child  ballads  had  been 
dance  songs  par  excellence,  they  would  have  come  down  to 
us  very  differently  in  tradition.  They  played  a  large  role 
in  popular  recital  and  song  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  had 
the  role  they  played  as  dance  songs  been  proportionately 
large,  we  should  have  unmistakable  evidence  of  it;  both 
external  testimonies,  and  evidence  within  the  songs  them- 
selves. We  should  know  from  the  changes  which  they 
developed  in  structure,  from  internal  allusions  to  the 
dance,  and  from  the  lore  of  traditional  dance  songs. 


DANCE  SONGS  PROPER  55 

The  dance  may  well  have  started  many  forms  of 
mediaeval  lyrisna  with  refrain  formulas,  whether  of  the 
artistic  or  of  the  more  popular  type.  Such  derivation  is 
usually  assigned  to  many  of  them.  But  it  is  the  more 
lyrical  forms,  rather  than  the  verse-tales,  which  were  most 
closely  bound  up  with  the  dance.  We  also  associate  with 
the  dance  the  spontaneous  popular  lyrics,  dance  songs 
proper,  which  have  been  preserved  for  us  here  and  there 
in  printed  form,  or  those  which  have  descended  to  us  in 
our  ring-dance  or  game  songs.  Both  the  art  lyrics  with 
refrains,  and  the  more  popular  and  impersonal  lyrics  with 
refrains,  like  Sumer  is  icumen  in,  make  their  appearance 
in  literature  before  ballads  of  the  Child  type  do. 

If  dance  origin,  or  connection  with  the  dance,  is  an 
essential  feature  of  "  ballads,"  the  name  belongs  with 
better  right  to  mediaeval  art  lyrics,  to  the  surviving  dance 
songs  proper,  or  to  the  type  remaining  in  our  play-party 
songs  and  ring  games,  for  which  we  have  no  specific  name, 
aside  from  the  inclusive  and  ambiguous  "  folk-song."  It 
is  always  a  safe  thing  to  test  our  theories  as  to  older  con- 
ditions for  popular  song  —  mediaeval  conditions,  for  ex- 
ample—  by  usages  in  living  society,  where  these  afford 
analogies ;  for  human  procedure,  whether  in  language,  ac- 
tion, or  song,  has  remained  pretty  constant  from  primi- 
tive times  onward.  The  ring  games  of  young  people  of 
the  present  day  preserve  many  of  the  dramatic  elements 
of  the  communal  dance,  and  the  songs  used  in  them  seem 
to  preserve  many  of  the  features  of  the  old  dance  songs. 
It  was  the  form  of  these  songs,  not  that  of  the  Child  pieces, 
which  was  conditioned  by  dance  usage,  and  bears  the 
marks  of  such  usage.  If  the  Child  pieces  were  primarily 
evolved  in  the  dance,  they  ought  to  show  more  signs  of  it, 


56     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

and  to  be  structurally  more  suitable;  for  instance,  they 
should  suggest  more  swing  and  movement.  And  to  think 
of  them  as  evolved  via  dances  of  commoners,  not  of  aristo- 
crats, is  difficult  indeed. 

A  disciple  of  the  communal  theory  of  ballad  origins, 
Dr.  Arthur  Saalbach,26  after  special  study  of  the  ballad 
of  Thomas  Rymer  (Thomas  of  Erceldoune)  decides  that 
it  had  its  origin  in  gatherings  of  the  mediaeval  dwellers  of 
Earlston  for  song  and  dance.  They  proceeded,  he  thinks, 
to  give  dramatic  rendition  of  the  old  story  of  their  local 
hero,  Thomas.  Some  participant  improvised  a  few  lines 
about  Thomas  to  a  familiar  or  an  improvised  melody. 
The  chorus  of  bystanders  joined  in  for  the  refrain  or  for 
repetition  of  the  last  line  of  the  strophe.  Perhaps  a  man 
took  the  role  of  Thomas  and  a  woman  the  role  of  the 
Fairy  for  the  whole  occasion.  The  choric-ballad  arising 
in  this  manner,  found  favor,  and  was  repeated  at  the  next 
gathering.  He  finds  additional  evidence  for  such  origin 
in  the  dramatic  handling  of  the  dialogue  in  the  ballad. 

But  there  is  nothing  suggesting  dance-song  origin  in 
the  structure  of  Thomas  Rymer,  as  it  remains  to  us.  It  is 
not  even  built  about  a  refrain;  indeed  it  seems  intrinsi- 
cally inappropriate  as  a  dance  song.  And  if  we  argue 
from  the  analogies  of  modern  folk-throngs,  those  at  Earls- 
ton  danced  probably  to  familiar  matter  —  in  which  case 
the  level  of  life  treated  in  the  subject-matter  of  their  dance 
song  might  be  higher  than  their  own.  Or,  if  they  im- 
provised, their  improvisation  probably  concerned  them- 
selves, or  something  in  their  immediate  horizon,  their  own 

28  Entstehungsgeschichte   der   Schottischen    Volksballade,    Thomas 
Rymer.  Diss.  Halle    (1913),  pp.  63-65. 


DANCE  SONGS  PROPER  57 

humble  interests  and  station,  or  the  latest  occurrence  among 
them.  It  would  not  be  heroic  or  a  fairy  story  but  some- 
thing satirical  or  personal  and  something  contemporary; 
and,  judging  from  known  folk-efforts,  it  would  probably 
so  lack  cohesion  and  finished  structure  as  to  be  one  of 
the  first  of  their  songs  to  die.  Thomas  Rymer  sounds  as 
though  composed  for  the  delectation  of  the  aristocratic,  not 
for  and  certainly  not  by  villagers. 

Let  us  look  at  some  of  the  dance  songs  remaining  in 
present  tradition,  and  then  apply  our  observations  back- 
ward. Children's  game  songs,  and  the  play-party  songs 
of  young  folks  on  the  green  and  in  the  parlor,  in  rural 
communities,  have  been  collected,  in  England  chiefly  by 
Mrs.  Gomme,  and  in  the  United  States  by  W.  W.  Newell 
for  New  England,  and  by  many  collectors  for  the  central 
west.  It  is  generally  agreed  that  our  traditional  dance 
and  game  songs  descend  from  those  of  the  middle  ages 
and  preserve  many  ancient  features ;  especially  the  dances 
in  circle  form  which  are  executed  to  the  singing  of  the 
participants,  not  to  the  music  of  instruments.  A  number 
of  these  pieces  seem  surely  to  be  of  high  descent,  and  many 
even  reflect  the  old  environment  of  grove  and  green. 
Some  of  the  texts  sound  as  though  they  accompanied  the 
dances  of  the  high  born.  Recall  the  many  references  to 
"  ladies  "  or  "  my  fair  lady  " — "  lady  "  is  not  yet  a  demo- 
cratic noun  in  England  —  to  kings  and  princes,  or  dukes, 
to  solid  gold  rings,  to  "  He  wore  a  star  upon  his  breast," 
and  the  like.  Most  of  the  songs  suggest  that  they  are 
movement  songs  by  their  very  wording,  or  structure.  In 
most  cases  a  typical  stanza  only  will  be  cited;  for  the 
songs  are  pretty  familiar,  and  they  have  become  accessible, 


58    THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

in  late  years,  in  game  books  for  school  usage.  The  cita- 
tions are  from  Mrs.  Gomme's  Dictionary  of  British  FolJc- 
Lore.27 

Here  we  go  round  the  mulberry  bush, 
The  mulberry  bush,  the  mulberry  bush, 
Here  we  go  round  the  mulberry  bush, 
On  a  cold  and  frosty  morning. 

Mulberry  Bush,  I,  p.  404. 

Round  and  round  the  village, 
Round  and  round  the  village, 
Round  and  round  the  village, 
As  we  have  done  before. 

In  and  out  the  windows, 
In  and  out  the  windows, 
In  and  out  the  windows, 
As  we  have  done  before. 

Round  and  Round  the  Village,  II,  p.  122. 

Tripping  up  the  green  grass, 

Dusty,   dusty  day, 
Come  all  ye  pretty  fair  maids, 

Come  and  with  me  play.  .  .  . 

Naughty  man,  he  won't  come  out, 

He  won't  come  out,  he  won't  come  out, 

27  Mrs.  Gomme  gives  a  list  of  dance  games,  n,  p.  465,  and  of 
circle-form  games,  with  singing  and  action,  n,  p.  476.  The  songs 
cited  here  are  recognized  by  her  as  descending  in  traditional  dance 
usage. 

"  In  den  Kinderreigen,"  says  Bohme,  Geschichte  des  Tames,  ch. 
xvn,  "  werden  wir  noch  alten  uberresten  von  Tanzliedern  der  Vor- 
zeit  begegnen."  As  ring-dances  were  given  up  by  the  mature  they 
lingered  among  children.  One  should  not  infer,  however,  that  all 
children's  play  songs  were  originally  game  or  dance-songs  of  grown- 
ups. Childhood  is  as  ancient  as  maturity,  and  even  the  savagest 
children  have  their  own  songs. 


DANCE  SONGS  PROPER  59 

Naughty  man,  he  won't  come  out, 
To  help  us  in  our  dancing. 

Green  Grass,  I,  p.  156. 

From  another  text  of  the  same  song: 

Here  we  go  up  the  green  grass, 
The  green  grass,  the  green  grass, 
Here  we  go  up  the  green  grass, 
So  early  in  the  morning. 

Ibid.,  i,  p.  160. 

A  ring,  a  ring  o'  roses, 
A  pocket  full  of  posies; 
A  curtsey  in  and  a  curtsey  out, 
And  a  curtsey  all  together. 

A  Bing  of  Roses,  II,  p.  108. 

Green  gravel  green  gravel,  the  grass  is  so  green, 
The  fairest  young  damsel  that  ever  was  seen.  .  .  . 

Green  Gravel,  i,  p.  171. 

The  material  is  too  abundant  and  too  familiar  for  much 
illustration  to  be  needed.  A  few  more  miscellaneous 
stanzas  are: 

Here  we  come  a-piping, 
First  in  spring  and  then  in  May, 
The  Queen  she  sits  upon  the  sand, 
Fair  as  a  lily,  white  as  a  wand: 
King  John  has  sent  you  letters  three, 
And  begs  you'll  read  them  unto  me, 
We  can't  read  one  without  them  all, 
So,  pray,  Miss  Bridget,  deliver  the  ball. 

Queen  Anne,  II,  p.  91. 

Here's  a  soldier  left  his  lone, 
Wants  a  wife  and  can't  get  none, 
Merrily  go  round  and  choose  your  own, 


60     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

Choose  a  good  one  or  else  choose  none, 
Choose  the  worst  or  choose  the  best, 
Or  choose  the  very  one  you  like  best. 

Here's  a  Soldier,  i,  p.  206. 

Poor  Mary,  what're  you  weepin'  for, 
A-weepin'  for,  a-weepin'  for, 
Pray,  Mary,  what're  you  weepin'  for? 
On  a  bright  summer's  day. 

Poor  Mary  Sits  A-Weeping,  u,  p.  47. 

The  following  dramatic  song  is  listed  by  Mrs.  Gomme  as 
a  circle-form  song;  though  she  thinks  it  originally  a 
harvest-song  : 

Oats  and  beans  and  barley  grow! 
Oats  and  beans  and  barley  grow! 
Do  you  or  I  or  anyone  know 
How  oats  and  beans  and  barley  grow? 
First  the  farmer  sows  his  seed, 
Then  he  stands  and  takes  his  ease, 
Stamps  his  foot,  and  claps  his  hands, 
Then  turns  round  to  view  the  land 

Waiting  for  a  partner,  waiting  for  a  partner! 
Open  the  ring  and  take  one  in. 

Oats  and  Beans  and  Barley,  u,  p.  1. 

Let  us  turn  next  to  some  of  the  ring-dance  songs  of 
young  people  in  the  United  States,  surviving  in  our  fast- 
dying-out  play-party  songs.  The  dancing,  as  in  the 
mediaeval  dance  songs,  is  to  the  singing  of  the  dancers, 
not  to  instrumental  music.  Old  World  importations  are 
easily  recognized.  The  refrains  remain  the  same  as  in 
their  British  cognates  : 

Come  honey,  my  love,  come  trip  with  me, 


,  , 

In  the  morning  early 


DANCE  SONGS  PROPER  61 

Heart  and  hand  we'll  take  our  stand; 
'Tis  true,  I  love  you  dearly. 

Weevilly  Wheat.28 

Oh,  the  jolly  old  miller  boy,  he  lived  by  the  mill, 
The  mill  turned  round  with  a  right  good  will, 

And  all  that  he  made,  he  put  it  on  the  shelf, 
At  the  end  of  the  year  he  was  gaining  in  his  wealth, 
One  hand  in  the  hopper,  and  the  other  in  the  sack, 
Gents  step  forward  and  the  ladies  step  back. 

The  Jolly  Old  Miller.20 

Go  out  and  in  the  window, 
Go  out  and  in  the  window, 
Go  out  and  in  the  window, 
For  we  shall  gain  the  day. 

We're  Marching  Round  the  Levy.30 

Lost  your  partner,  what'll  you  do? 
Lost  your  partner,  what'll  you  do? 
Lost  your  partner,  what'll  you  do? 
Skip  to  My  Lou,  my  darling. 

Skip  to  My  Lou.81 

Come  all  ye  young  people  that's  wending  your  way, 
And  sow  your  wild  oats  in  your  youthful  day, 
For  the  daylight  it  passes,  and  night's  coming  on, 
So   choose   you   a   partner,    and   be   marching    along,   marching 
along.32 

Professor  E.  F.  Piper  points  out 33  that  in  songs  which 

28  Mrs.  L.  D.  Ames,  The  Missouri  Play-Party,  Journal  of  American 
Folk-Lore,  xxiv    (1911),  p.  302. 

29  Ibid.,  p.  306. 
so  Ibid.,  p.  306. 
si  Ibid.,  p.  304. 

32  Ibid.,  p.  314. 

33  Some  Play-Party  Games  of  the  Middle  West,  Journal  of  Ameri- 
can Folk-Lore,  cix,  p.  264. 


62     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

describe  the  progress  of  a  game,  like  The  Miller  Boy  (The 
Jolly  Miller  of  Mrs.  Gomme)  and  Juniper  Tree: 

0  dear  sister  Phoebe,  how  happy  were  we, 
The  night  we  sat  under  the  juniper  treel 
The  juniper  tree,  heigho,  heigho! 
The  juniper  tree,  heigho ! 

Then  rise  you  up,  Sister,  go  choose  you  a  man, 
Go  choose  you  the  fairest  that  ever  you  can, 
Then  rise  you  up,  Sister,  and  go,  and  go, 
Then  rise  you  up,  Sister,  and  go.  ... 

the  form  remains  fairly  constant.  In  such  songs  one  can- 
not easily  change  the  words  without  changing  the  formula. 
In  the  same  way,  Oats,  pease,  beans,  remains  fairly  con- 
stant. Weevilly  Wheat  and  Kilmacrankie  perhaps  afford 
examples  of  "  the  decay  of  ballad  matter  under  the  usage 
of  the  singing  game,  or  dance."34  Many  of  the  songs  he 
lists  show  the  influence  of  quadrilles  and  other  dances, 
illustrating  once  more  the  tendency  of  the  imported,  or 
higher,  or  newer,  to  descend  and  linger  among  the  hum- 
bler and  more  remote.  A  few  more  illustrations  of  gen- 
uine communal  dance  songs  should  suffice : 

We  come  here  to  bounce  around, 
We  come  here  to  bounce  around, 
We  come  here  to  bounce  around, 

Tra,  la,  la,  la! 

Ladies,  do,  si,  do, 

Gents,  you  know, 

8*This  seems  the  natural  process;  but  compare  Professor  Gum- 
mere's  latest  theories  of  ballad  growth  and  "  improvement,"  cited 
a  little  farther  on.  The  process  which,  to  collectors  of  folk  dance- 
songs,  brings  ballad  degradation,  to  Professor  Gummere  is  the  pro- 
cess by  which  are  evolved  "  good  "  ballads.  At  other  times,  however, 


DANCE  SONGS  PROPER  63 

Swing  to  the  right, 
And  then  to  the  left, 
And  all  promenade.35 

Up  and  down  the  center  we  go, 
Up  and  down  the  center  we  go, 
Up  and  down  the  center  we  go, 
This  cold  and  frosty  morning. 

Chase  that  Squirrel.59 

When  popular  songs,   or  street  songs,   are  utilized  as 
dance  songs,  they  are  handled  like  this : 

Captain  Jinks 

I'm  Captain  Jinks  of  the  horse  marines, 
I  feed  my  horse  on  corn  and  beans, 
And  court  young  ladies  in  their  teens, 
For  that's  the  style  of  the  army. 

We'll  all  go  round  and  circle  left, 
We'll  circle  left,  we'll  circle  left, 
We'll  all  go  round  and  circle  left, 

For  that's  the  style  of  the  army. 
The  ladies  right  and  form  a  ring, 
And  when  they  form  you  give'm  a  swing, 
And  when  you  swing  you  give'm  a  call, 

And  take  your  lady  and  promenade  all.37 

Jim  Along  Jo 

Hi,  Jim  along,  Jim  along,  Josie 
Hi,  Jim  along,  Jim,  along  Jo 
Hi,  Jim  along,  Jim  along  Josie 
Hi,  Jim  along,  Jim  along  Jo.38 

he  continued  to  make  reference  to  the  "  degradation  "  and  "  decay  " 
due  to  tradition. 

36  Ames,  p.  296.  "  Ames,  p.  309. 

»«  Piper,  p.  266.  as  Piper,   p.   268. 


64     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

Little  Brown  Jug 

Sent  my  brown  jug  down  in  town, 
Sent  my  brown  jug  down  in  town, 
Sent  my  brown  jug  down  in  town, 
So  early  in  the  morning.39 

Not  one  of  these  pieces  is  a  ballad,  just  as  the  vocal 
accompaniments  to  old  British  dances  round  the  Maypole 
were  not  ballads.  One  of  the  latter  has  survived  in  the 
ring  games  of  the  Georgia  negroes,  again  illustrating  the 
survival,  in  outlying  places,  among  the  humble  and  remote, 
of  matter  assimilated  from  the  usage,  in  bygone  vogue,  of 
people  of  another  social  class : 

All  around  the  May-pole, 

The  May-pole,  the  May-pole, 
All  around  the  May-pole. 

Now,  Miss  Sally,  won't  you  bow?  etc.40 

Repetition  and  interweaving  of  lines,  is  much  more  per- 
vasive and  essential  in  communal  dance  songs  than'  in 
pieces  of  the  Child  type,  and  it  is  of  a  different  kind.  It 
shows  us,  however,  the  type  of  repetition  to  be  expected  in 
such  dance  songs.  There  is  no  evidence  that  ballads  are 
ever  built  up  from  dance  songs,  but  a  great  deal  that  dance 
songs  may  be  built  upon  popular  songs  of  all  types.  Mrs. 
Gomme  notes  that  many  English  circle-game  songs  have 
evidently  been  derived  from  love  ballads,  drinking  songs, 
and  toasts,  and  that  some  of  the  dance  games  are  of  this 
origin. 

8»  Goldy  M.  Hamilton,  The  Play-Party  in  Northeast  Missouri, 
Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  xxvn,  pp.  269,  297  (The  Girl  I 
Left  Behind  Me),  p.  301. 

40  Loraine  Darby,  Ring  Games  from  Georgia,  Journal  of  American 
Folk-Lore,  xxx  (1917),  p.  218. 


DANCE  SONGS  PROPER  65 

If  the  ballads  had  been  used  typically  in  popular  dances, 
collections  like  those  made  by  Mrs.  Gomme  and  Mr.  Newell 
should  reveal  many  traces  of  such  usage.  On  the  other 
hand,  when  we  do  not  assume  that  ballads  were  the  staple 
material  of  mediaeval  dance  songs,  what  has  come  down 
to  us  in  tradition  is  of  just  the  character  which  we  should 
expect.  There  are  many  "  situation  "  songs  among  these 
traditional  dance  and  game  songs,  and  there  are  dialogue 
pieces ;  41  but  one  finds  no  traces  of  the  development  of 
dialogue  songs  into  ballads  proper,  or  of  the  "  divorcing  " 
of  dance  songs  from  the  dance,  on  the  way  toward  becom- 
ing lyric-epics. 

When  we  examine  genuine  dance  songs,  it  becomes  clear 
that  their  most  important  element  is  the  repetitional 
element.  The  texts  of  most  of  them  shift  even  more  than 
do  the  ballad  texts,  for  there  is  no  story  to  hold  them 
together;  but  the  repeated  element,  or  the  refrain,  is 
stable.42  They  are  lyrical,  and  they  tempt  to  movement. 
And,  as  suggested  above,  no  matter  how  long  they  have 
been  preserved  in  usage  as  dance  songs,  they  have  never 
developed  into  anything  like  Child  ballads,  nor  have  they 
been  transformed  into  narrative  pieces  of  any  type.  They 
show  no  signs  of  the  evolution  sketched  by  Professor  Gum- 

41  Mrs.   Gomme  thinks  that  the  dialogue  songs  are  of  later  de- 
velopment, n,  p.  500.     Professors  W.  M.  Hart  and  G.  H.   Stempel 
think  that  dialogue  songs  represent  a  very  early  stage,  in  the  history 
of  ballads  proper. 

42  A   remark   made   by   Professor   C.    S.    Baldwin    concerning   the 
ballad  is  much  truer  of  the  dance  song,  "  The  refrain,  then,  is  not 
a  poetic  embellishment;   it  is  a  kind  of  nucleus;   it  determines  the 
structure.     The  tale  is  built  around  the  refrain,"  English  Mediaeval 
Literature   (1914),  p.  237.     For  the  r6le  played  by  refrains  in  the 
English  ballads,  see  p.  188. 


66     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

mere,  in  his  chapter  in  the  Cambridge  History  of  English 
Literature : 

The  structure  of  the  ballad  —  what  makes  it  a  species,  the 
elements  of  it  —  derives  from  choral  and  dramatic  conditions ; 
what  gives  it  its  peculiar  art  of  narrative  is  the  epic  process 
working  by  oral  tradition  and  gradually  leading  to  a  new  struc- 
ture. 

Or  in  his  The  Popular  Ballad:  43 

.  .  .  the  course  of  the  popular  ballad  is  from  a  mimetic  choral 
situation,  slowly  detaching  itself  out  of  the  festal  dance  and 
coming  into  the  reminiscent  ways  of  tradition  in  song  and  re- 
cital. 

Or  in  Democracy  and  Poetry : 

Development  of  narrative  poetry  out  of  repetition  is  an  obvious 
process  easily  proved  by  the  facts  and  consists  simply  in  a 
decrease  of  verbal  repetition  and  a  corresponding  increase  of  the 
verbal  increment."  ..."  An  epic  element,  aecretional  and  ex- 
planatory, has  in  many  cases  been  added  to  the  choral  and  dra- 
matic nucleus."  44 

The  songs  cited  in  the  foregoing  pages  have  survived 
under  the  right  conditions,  oral  and  communal,  but  they 
show  no  signs  of  an  "  epic  process  "  leading  to  a  new 
structure.  The  Child  ballads,  on  the  other  hand,  show 
something  quite  different  from  the  dance  songs.  For 
them,  the  refrain  is  the  variable  element.  Their  texts 

48  P.  84.  It  is  rather  surprising  to  find,  on  pp.  68-69,  that  "  narra- 
tive is  not  a  fixed  fundamental  primary  fact  in  the  ballad  scheme." 
This  means  that  the  very  thing  that  makes  a  ballad  a  ballad,  not 
verse  of  some  other  lyric  type,  is  not  a  fundamental  or  primary 
feature  of  its  structure. 

«*  Pp.  186,  190. 


NARRATIVE  SONGS  AND  THE  DANCE  67 

remain  as  constant  as  the  conditions  of  transmission  allow ; 
but  the  refrain  does  not  remain  constant  within  the  same 
hallad.  The  test  of  living  folk-song,  examination  of  the 
kind  of  thing  which  the  folk  can  improvise  now,  and  the 
character  of  the  songs  which  are  genuinely  and  primarily 
dance  songs,  preserved  in  oral  transmission,  ought  to  show 
the  fatuity  of  seeking  an  identical  genesis  for  these  types 
and  for  pieces  like  the  English  and  Scottish  popular 
ballads.45  It  is  a  safer  hypothesis  that  the  Child  type  of 
piece,  once  established  in  popularity,  might  at  times  be 
fitted  to  well-known  dance  tunes,  or  be  utilized,  like  nearly 
any  other  kind  of  song,  as  a  dance  song,  than  that  dance- 
genesis  evolved  the  Child  type  —  that  the  Child  type  repre- 
sents, par  excellence  among  poetic  types,  an  evolution  from 
dance  origin. 

Ill NARRATIVE    SONGS    AND    THE    DANCE 

It  would  be  going  much  too  far,  would  indeed  be  con- 
trary to  the  facts,  to  affirm  that  there  is  never  dancing  to 
narrative  songs.  Among  European  peoples  where  the 
narrative  song  has  established  itself  as  a  leading  type  of 
popular  song,  instances  of  it  occur,  and  there  should  be 
occasional  instances  of  it  anywhere  among  advanced 
peoples.46  This  should  be  especially  true  of  the  shorter 

« Andrew  Lang,  in  his  article  on  Ballads  in  the  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica  wrote :  "  It  is  natural  to  conclude  that  our  ballads  too 
were  first  improvised  and  circulated  in  rustic  dances."  He  held  at 
the  time  the  views  still  held  by  the  majority  of  American  scholars. 
But  in  his  article  on  the  same  subject  in  the  last  edition  of  Cham- 
bers'a  Cyclopaedia  of  English  Literature  (1904),  he  has  given  up  this 
theory  of  ballad  origins,  and  indeed,  from  his  article,  is  hardly 
recognizable  as  still  a  communal  ist. 

*« "  Narrative,  too,   are  most   of   the   dance   songs   in   a   modern 


'68  THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

and  more  tuneful  ballads.  There  was  perhaps  some 
dancing  to  heroic  narrative  songs,  if  not  to  "  histories," 
probably  to  romantic  tales,  in  England.  We  have  seen 
that  in  American  ring-dance  or  "  play-party  "  games,  the 
descendants  of  mediaeval  dance-modes,  narrative  songs  are 
utilized  occasionally,  as  Barbara  Allen's  Cruelty,  referred 
to  earlier,  to  accompany  the  dance.  Songs  of  all  types 
have  undergone  this  experience,  probably  ballads  along 
with  the  others,  especially  when  the  words  were  fitted  to 
some  familiar  dance  tune.  But  in  a  majority  of  cases  the 
narrative  pieces  would  be  less  suitable.  Such  utilization 
—  this  is  my  point  —  would  not  represent  an  original 
stage,  but  would  be  exceptional  rather  than  normal. 

Our  best  evidence  for  early  European  dance  songs  comes 
from  France.  The  French  dance  songs  which  remain  to 
us  are  lyric,  not  lyric-epic,  and  they  are  aristocratic.47 
Indeed,  admits  Professor  Gummere,  "  all  the  Old  French 

Russian  cottage,"  writes  Professor  Gummere,  Old  English  Ballads,  p. 
Ixxix,  and  cites  Ralston,  Songs  of  the  Russian  People,  1872.  But 
the  examples  given  by  Ralston  are  not  narrative;  they  are  not  bal- 
lads but  lyrics,  and  of  the  expected  type.  Professor  Gummere's  soli- 
tary example  of  a  dance  ballad  is  from  the  Ditmarsh  folk  of  Holstein, 
but  even  that  is  more  lyric  than  lyric-epic.  It  labels  itself  as  a 
dance  song,  and  might  well  be  an  older  song  which  has  been  fitted  to 
the  dance,  not  one  made  in  the  dance.  The  Popular  Ballad,  p.  97, 
footnote. 

Strictly,  what  are  called  "  dances "  among  savages  are  in  large 
part  drama,  and  there  is  abundance  of  histrionic  or  mimetic  action 
accompanied  by  songs  of  which  action  is  the  illustration,  i.  e.,  there 
are  songs  suggesting  ideas,  and  these  are  to  some  extent  enacted. 
Over  against  these  are  the  rhythmic  chants  and  ejaculatory  refrains 
that  form  simple  motor  suggestions  or  reverberations.  The  latter 
are  the  only  ones  "  danced  "  in  our  modern  sense  of  "  dance." 

*7  Jeanroy,  Les  Origines  de  la  Poesie  Lyrique  en  France  au  Moyen 
Age,  1904 ;  Bedier,  Les  Plus  Anciennes  Danses  Franchises,  Revue  des 
Deux  Mondes,  Jan.  15,  1906,  p.  398. 


NARRATIVE  SONGS  AND  THE  DANCE  69 

dances  were  aristocratic  to  the  point  of  making  modern 
investigators  doubt  the  existence  of  the  '  popular '  cus- 
toms." 48  English  dance  songs  have  already  been  exam- 
ined. Let  us  turn  to  Icelandic  usage.  Vigfiisson  49  tells 
us  that  the  "  dance,  in  full  use  accompanied  by  songs 
which  are  described  as  loose  and  amorous "  —  lyrical 
pieces  these  seem  to  be  —  appears  at  the  end  of  the  eleventh 
century.  Icelandic  danz  comes  to  mean  song;  and  flimt, 
loose  song,  and  danz  are  synonymous  words.  The  rimur, 
or  epical  paraphrases,  with  matter  like  that  of  our  ballads, 
first  appear  about  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century. 
Almost  all  Icelandic  sagas  and  romances,  even  the  histor- 
ical books  of  the  Bible,  were  turned,  we  are  told,  into  such 
lays  or  ballads.  "  The  heathen  heroic  poems  were  cer- 
tainly never  used,"  says  Vigfusson,  "  to  accompany  a 
dance.  Their  flow  and  meter  are  a  sufficient  proof  of 
that."  The  word  dance  points,  wherever  found,  to  a  new 
fashion  introduced  from  France  and  spreading  quickly 
over  Europe.  The  old  words  would  not  serve  for  this 
new  French  art,  which  brought  its  own  name  even  to  Ice- 
land. Icelandic  evidence  is  the  earliest  that  we  have  for 
the  dance  songs  of  Scandinavian  countries,  and  the  early 
Icelandic  dance  songs  were,  it  would  appear,  lyrical  and 
amatory,  like  the  early  French  and  English  dance  songs. 
The  employment  of  heroic  romantic  narrative  material 
belongs  to  a  later  stage. 

In  Denmark,  courtly  society  of  the  later  middle  ages 
danced  to  narrative  ballads,  and  the  pieces  closely  resemble 
the  Child  ballads.  But  Danish  literature  seems  to  know 
no  other  song,  no  body  of  purely  lyrical  movement  songs. 

<8  The  Popular  Ballad,  p.  97. 

*•  Cleasby-Vigfusson,   Icelandic  Dictionary,  under  dams. 


70     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

The  wealth  of  lyric  poetry  appearing  in  England  and 
France  and  Germany  was  unknown  in  Denmark.  It  has 
no  erotic  lyric  poetry.  The  ballad  was  practically  the 
only  form,  we  are  told,  in  which  the  people  expressed 
their  feelings.  The  Danish  ballads  are  very  valuable. 
"  We  possess,"  says  Steenstrup,  "  40  ballad  manuscripts 
of  the  period  prior  to  1750,  while  Sweden  possesses  10, 
the  oldest  antedated  by  many  Danish."  The  Danish  bal- 
lads were  preserved  by  high-born  ladies  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries,  who  did  fine  service  in  collecting 
into  manuscripts  the  songs  current  in  the  castles  of  the 
period. 

The  Danish  pieces  show  their  connection  with  the  dance, 
as  do  most  dance  songs,  in  their  very  texts,  and  they  even 
show  how  the  dance  was  conducted.  Here  are  some 
specimen  lines :  50 

Midsummer  night  upon  the  sward, 
Knights  and  squires  were  standing  guard. 

In  the  grove  a  knightly  dance  they  tread 
With  torches  and  garlands  of  roses  red. 

In  sable  and  martin  before  them  all 
Dances  Sir  Iver,  the  noblest  of  all. 

To  the  king  in  his  tower  strong 
Floats  the  noise  of  the  dancing  throng. 

"  Who  is  yon  knight  that  leads  the  dance, 
And  louder  than  all  the  song  he  chants  ?  " 

Proud  Elselille,  No.  220. 

BO  These  and  other  examples  are  cited  by  Steenstrup,  The  Medi- 
aeval Popular  Ballad,  p.  12.  Translated  by  E.  G.  Cox. 


NARRATIVE  SONGS  AND  THE  DANCE  71 

Now  longs  the  king  himself 

To  step  the  dance; 
The  hero  Hagen  follows  after, 

For  them  the  song  he  chants. 
So  stately  dances  Hagen. 

Hagen's  Dance,  No.  465. 

It  was  Mettelil,  the  count's  daughter, 
She  stepped  the  dance  for  them. 

No.  261. 

There  dances  Sir  Stig,  as  light  as  a  wand, 
With  a  silver  cup  in  his  white  hand. 

No.  76. 

Individual  ballads  reveal  by  internal  testimony  that 
they  were  used  for  the  dance : 

Step  lightly  o'er  the  green  plain  — 
The  maid  must  follow  me ; 

No.  241. 

Step  up  boldly,  young  knight; 
Honor  the  maidens  in  the  dance. 

No.  244. 

Stand  up,  stand  up,  my  maidens  all, 
And  dance  for  me  a  space; 
And  sing  for  me  a  ballad 
About  the  sons  of  Lave's  race. 

No.  366. 

An  account  of  the  Ditmarsh  folk  of  Holstein  by  Johann 
Adolfi  (Neocorus)  written  in  1598,  says  that  the  people 
have  adapted  nearly  all  their  songs  to  the  dance,  in  order 
to  remember  them  better,  and  to  keep  them  current.51 

»i  Chronik  dea  Landes  Dithmarschen,  edited  by  F.  C.  Dahlmann, 
i,  p.  177;  "  Nichtess  weiniger  isst  tho  vorwunderen  (deii  up  dat  de 


72     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

The  dances  he  describes  are  like  the  Danish  dances,  with 
singing  by  a  "  foresinger,"  and  choral  response  and 
refrain.  There  were  also,  as  in  our  own  ring-dance 
songs,  whole  pieces  where  all  the  participants  sang  as 
they  danced. 

There  is  little  or  nothing  of  the  Danish  type  of  self- 
labeled  dance  songs  among  the  Child  pieces.  All  but  a 
few  of  the  Danish  ballads  have  refrains.  Those  lacking 
them  are  mostly  late  importations  or  translations.  The 
movement  is  often  nimble  and  rapid.  On  the  other  hand, 
of  1250  versions  of  the  English  ballads,  about  300,  i.  e.,  a 
fourth,  have  refrains.52 

As  to  origins,  the  Danish  ballads  do  not  help  the  com- 
munalists,  but  the  contrary.  The  dancing  for  which  they 
were  used  —  some  were  employed  for  entertainment  of 
other  kinds,  like  riding  or  rowing  —  was  the  dancing  of 
the  high-born;  both  in  content  and  movement,  they  seem 
suitable  for  this  purpose.  Both  Grundtvig  and  Steen- 
strup  seem  to  be  satisfied  with  the  hypothesis  of  minstrel 
authorship  for  them.  They  offer  no  suggestion  of  the 
responsibility,  for  the  type,  of  festal  village  throngs,  or 
of  the  throngs  of  primitive  times.  And  it  is  interesting 
to  note  that  when  Steenstrup  seeks  to  restore  the  Danish 
ballads  to  their  older  and  truer  form,  and  to  rid  them  of 
spurious  accretions,  one  of  his  first  steps  is  to  shear  away 
various  types  of  repetition,  as  "  padding."  53 

Gesenge  edder  Geschichte  deste  ehr  gelehret  unnd  beter  beholden 
worden  unnd  lenger  im  Gebruke  bleven,  hebben  se  de  alle  fast  den 
Dentzen  bequemet),  dat  se  nha  Erf  ordering  der  Wortt  und  Wise  des 
Gesanges,"  etc. 

52  The  Popular  Ballad,  p.  74. 

es  The  Mediaeval  Popular  Ballad,  pp.  75-77. 


NARRATIVE  SONGS  AND  THE  DANCE  73 

At  this  point,  something  should,  no  doubt,  be  said  with 
reference  to  the  ballads  of  the  Faroe  Islands.  They  have 
been  brought  much  into  the  foreground,  in  the  discussions 
of  the  genesis  of  the  ballads,  and  afford  to  communalists 
their  chief  stronghold ; 54  although  Steenstrup  advises 
caution  55  in  using  them  for  help  in  understanding  older 
ballad  forms.  Their  recollection  of  Saga  and  Eddie 
poetry  is  strong,  and  this  knowledge  must  have  blended 
with  knowledge  of  the  poetry  of  the  middle  ages.  More- 
over popular  ballads,  he  says,  were  taken  up  by  priests  and 
learned  people.  Several  types  of  verse  are  to  be  noted  in 
Faroe  folk-song;  but  mostly  the  introduction  of  Danish 
ballads,  supposed  to  have  begun  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
has  affected  them.  In  the  Faroes,  in  the  preceding  cen- 
tury at  least,  as,  in  less  degree,  in  our  own  fast-dying-out 
ring-game  or  play-party  songs  of  young  people,  throng 
dancing  of  the  old  circle  type,  with  linked  hands,  was 
still  preserved.  The  dancing  is  to  singing  rather  than  to 
instrumental  music,  again  as  in  our  ring-games;  and  as 
in  the  latter,  all  take  part  in  the  singing  and  all  join  in 
the  refrain.  Sometimes  spontaneous  improvised  lines  or 
verses,  still  as  in  our  ring-games,  arise  out  of  the  occasion 
itself. 

The  classic  report  of  the  Faroe  dances  was  made  by 
Pastor  Lyngbye  in  1822,  who  left  descriptions  of  them. 
Their  dance-themes  are  derived  from  Norwegian  or 
Icelandic  sources,  a  favorite  subject  being  the  "  hero 

54  "  The  ballad-genesis  is  more  plainly  proved  for  the  Faroes  than 
for  any  other  modern  people "  ( Gummere,  The  Popular  Ballad,  p. 
69). 

ss  See  The  Mediaeval  Popular  Ballad,  p.  7. 


74          THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

Sigurd."  They  dance  to  historical  ballads,  like  the 
Danes,56  but  to  religious  and  lampooning  ballads  as  well. 
There  are  many  lyric-epics,  like  the  Danish  ones  we  have 
mentioned.  Indeed,  the  Icelanders  know  and  use  ballads 
in  the  Danish  language.  The  fishermen  also  have  rude 
dances,  sometimes  to  songs  of  their  own  creation.  Pastor 
Lyngbye  tells  of  one,  often  utilized  for  argument  by 
Professor  Gummere,  concerning  a  fisherman,  pushed  by 
his  comrades  into  the  center  of  the  throng,  while  they 
improvised  verses  upon  a  recent  mishap  which  had  befallen 
him.  The  text  of  the  song  is  not  preserved,  so  we  cannot 
place  its  type.  We  have  no  right  to  call  it  a  ballad ;  most 
probably  it  was  not.  From  what  we  are  told  of  them, 
these  improvised  fishermen  pieces  sound  analogous  to  our 
own  ranch-hand,  cowboy,  lumberman,  or  negro  improvisa- 
tions, or  to  the  occasional  spontaneous  ventures  of  our 
own  ring-dances.  They  are  upon  events  of  the  moment, 
of  interest  to  members  of  the  circle  involved.  They  are 
fashioned  on  or  are  imitations  of,  songs  of  better  type,  of 
higher  descent,  and  they  are  markedly  crude  and  poor. 
Further,  the  Faroe  fishermen  pieces  are  sung  to  hymn 
tunes  or  to  familiar  airs,  not  to  invented  melodies,  or  to 
traditional  melodies  —  not  at  least  to  melodies  traditional 

68  Our  earliest  testimony  concerning  the  Faroe  dances  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Faroa  Reserata  of  Lucas  Debes,  Kopenhagen,  1673.  He 
writes,  p.  251,  that  "  the  inhabitants  of  the  Faroe  Islands  are  little 
inclined  toward  useless  pastimes  or  idle  gaiety,  but  content  them- 
selves mostly  with  singing  psalms  .  .  .  only  at  marriages  or  at 
Christmas  time  do  they  seek  amusement  in  a  simple  circle  dance, 
one  grasping  another  by  the  hand  while  they  sing  old  hero-songs." 
Pastor  Lyngbye's  much-quoted  Fcertfiske  Quceder,  etc.,  was  published 
in.  1822.  See  also  N.  Annandale,  The  Faroes  and  Iceland,  Oxford, 
1905.  The  whole  matter  of  Faroe  folk-song  was  cleared  up  satisfac- 
torily by  H.  Thuren  in  his  Folke  Saangen  paa  Fcerperne,  1908. 


NARRATIVE  SONGS  AND  THE  DANCE     75 

from  ancient  times.57  The  Faroe  songs  teach  us  nothing 
as  to  the  genesis  of  the  lyric-epic  type,  for  they  them- 
selves preserve  and  continue  imported  fashions.  All  in 
all,  there  is  nothing  to  be  learned  from  the  Faroe  dance- 
song  customs  that  runs  contrary  to  evidence  from  other 
sources.  Rather  do  they  bear  it  out.  And  certainly  we 
cannot  look  to  them  as  mirroring  par  excellence  what  is 
oldest.58 

87  The  type  of  song  now  used  by  Shakers,  Holy  Rollers,  and  other 
dancing  religious  sects  ought  to  be  a  point  of  corroborative  interest. 
They  probably  resemble  the  Salvation  Army  type  of  hymn. 

ss  For  German,  an  excellent  display  of  dance-song  material  may  be 
found  in  Franz  Bohme's  Geschichte  des  Tanzes  in  Deutschland, 
Leipzig,  1886.  In  chapter  xv,  "  tiber  Tanzlieder,"  he  groups  his 
material  into  classes,  to  show  the  varied  character  of  the  content. 
He  gives  amatory  songs  first  place,  as  the  most  frequent  accompani- 
ment of  the  dance,  with  many  examples.  Historical  songs,  old  hero 
songs,  and  mythic  pieces  (his  second  class),  were  sung,  he  thinks, 
in  the  oldest  period,  for  the  dance.  But  his  evidence  for  this  is  the 
hero  songs  of  the  Faroes,  concerning  which  we  have  evidence  from 
the  seventeenth  century,  and  the  testimony  of  Neocorus  (1598)  con- 
cerning the  Ditmarsh  folk  of  Holstein.  The  bearing  of  this  evidence 
has  already  been  considered.  The  third  class  he  names  consists  of 
ballads  or  epic  folk-songs,  for  which  his  examples  for  Germany  are 
meager.  This  class,  he  says,  was  "  in  full  bloom  "  in  the  Romance 
languages  and  in  England,  as  sung  at  the  dance  —  a  hasty  and  mis- 
taken generalization.  A  fourth  class  consists  of  lampoons,  vitupera- 
tions, satires,  etc.,  abundantly  illustrated.  This  is  the  class  of  dance 
songs  which  is  often  improvised.  His  next  class  consists  of  bird 
and  animal  songs,  as  of  the  nightingale,  cuckoo,  heron,  owl,  fox,  etc. 
Riddle,  wishing,  and  wager  songs,  and  (rarely)  religious  songs  con- 
stitute the  last  classes.  In  the  second  part  of  his  history,  the  author 
prints  356  specimens  of  dance  songs  and  melodies,  in  chronological 
sequence.  Among  these  illustrative  dance  songs  the  epic  folk-song, 
the  ballad  of  the  Child  type,  is  the  type  playing  the  least  conspicuous 
rOle.  How  any  scholar  who  examines  Bohme's  display  of  mediaeval 
dance-song  material  —  it  is  strikingly  parallel  to  English  dance-song 
material  —  can  retain  the  belief  that  lyric-epic  pieces  like  the  Child 


76     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

In  the  Child  pieces,  the  story,  not  suggestion  of  move- 
ment or  suitability  for  movement,  is  the  main  thing. 
When  a  refrain  is  present,  the  only  sure  inference  to  be 
made  from  its  presence  is  that  the  piece  was  made  to  be 
sung,  or  possibly  to  be  recited  orally.  The  refrain  is 
present  in  mediaeval  as  in  modern  songs  which  have  no 
connection  with  the  dance.  But  the  refrain  itself  is  not 
an  essential  in  the  Child  pieces  as  it  is  in  the  Danish; 
we  have  just  pointed  out  that  hardly  a  fourth,  by  Profes- 
sor Gummere's  count,  have  refrains.  In  those  which  are 
surely  old,  like  The  Battle  of  Otterbourne,  The  Hunting 
of  the  Cheviot,  or  Judas,  no  refrain  is  present.  It  is  not 
then  a  constant  feature,  but  occurs  variably.  Nor  is  it 
constant  even  for  individual  ballads,  but  fluctuates,  appar- 
ently, with  the  melodies  to  which  they  were  sung.  If  the 
Child  ballad,  or  its  archetype,  was  a  dance  song,  the  refrain 
formula  ought  to  persist  above  all  else,  through  oral  tradi- 

pieces  were  conditioned  first  of  all  by  mediaeval  dances,  is  hard  to 
understand.  They  seem  to  be  a  lyric  type  least  to  be  associated  with 
such  usage. 

It  is  true  that  Professor  Bohme,  whose  book  was  published  in 
1886,  begins  with  the  view  that  "  Tanzlieder  waren  die  ersten 
Lieder,"  "  Beim  Tanze  wurden  die  altesten.  epischen  Dichtungen 
(erzahlende  Volkslieder)  gesungen,  durch  den  Tanz  sind  sie  veran- 
lasst  worden  .  .  .,"  "  Die  alteste  Poesie  eines  jeden  Volkes  1st  eine 
Verbindung  von  Tanz,  Spiel,  und  Gesang."  But  his  material  does 
not  bear  out  his  preliminary  statements,  nor  is  he  insistent  upon  the 
narrative  song  as  the  earliest  dance  song,  as  his  book  proceeds. 
He  tells  us,  p.  230,  that  we  learn  the  origin  and  the  form  of  dance 
songs  best  from  the  South  German  Schnadahiipfln,  short  two-  or 
four-line  songs,  to  familiar  melodies,  often  improvised  (see  his 
fourth  class)  by  singers  and  dancers.  Among  these  songs,  the  he- 
roic element  hardly  appears,  and  the  historic  never.  A  careful 
survey  of  the  citations  in  Bb'hme's  Geschichte  des  Tanzes  should 
disillusion  believers  in  the  ballad  as  the  characteristic  type  of  medi- 
aeval dance  song,  or  as  the  leading  lyric  type  of  dance  genesis. 


NARRATIVE  SONGS  AND  THE  DANCE  77 

tion  and  dance  usage,  as  it  does  in  the  dance  or  ring-game 
songs  of  which  we  are  sure.  It  is  what  should  identify 
the  individual  ballads.  Moreover,  refrains  appear  very 
abundantly  in  the  later  pieces  and  in  broadsides;  that  is, 
they  are  not  distanced,  the  farther  we  get  from  the  hypo- 
thetical dance-throngs  with  which  they  are  supposed  to 
be  bound  up. 

When  the  English  and  Scottish  ballads  do  use  the 
refrain,  they  use  it  in  the  art  way,  not  in  the  folk  way. 
It  is  something  extraneous,  introduced  from  the  outside, 
varying  for  the  same  ballad,  subject  to  modification  or 
replacement  at  the  will  of  the  singers,  not  part  of  the 
fabric  of  the  song.  And  like  the  refrains  of  the  art  songs 
of  the  middle  ages,  carols,  or  roundels,  or  ballades,  it  comes 
at  regular  intervals.  It  is  not  handled  like  the  repetitions 
of  traditional  dance  songs,  usually  the  most  stable  element 
of  the  song,  nor  in  the  crude  way  of  much  of  the  repetition 
in  unlettered  folk-improvisations.  Nor  should  it  be  con- 
fused with  the  one-word  and  two-word  songs  chanted  in  the 
choral  repetitions  of  savage  tribes.  The  latter  are  not 
refrains,  but  the  whole  song. 

Refrains  and  choral  repetitions  are  more  necessary  to 
other  kinds  of  mediaeval  lyric  verse  than  they  are  to 
ballads.  It  is  not,  in  fact,  the  presence  of  a  refrain,  or 
of  choral  repetition  that  makes  the  Child  pieces  ballads. 
What  is  essential,  if  pieces  are  to  be  classified  as  ballads, 
is  that  they  tell  a  story  in  verse.  If  they  are  ballads  of 
the  Child  type  they  probably  exhibit  structural  or  lyrical 
repetition  in  their  presentation  of  narrative  material ;  but 
no  amount  of  structural  or  lyrical  repetition  makes  a  piece 
a  ballad  unless  a  narrative  element  is  present.  Repetition 
of  both  types  is  a  striking  characteristic,  for  example,  of 


T8  THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

revival  hymns,  and  these  had  their  origin  neither  as 
ballads  nor  as  dance  songs,59  and  it  is  characteristic,  most 
of  all,  of  game  and  dance  songs  proper;  yet  these  are  not 
ballads.  In  practice,  it  is  conceded  by  everybody,  com- 
munalists  too,  that  a  lyric  may  have  a  refrain,  or  repeated 
lines,  as  do  many  of  the  lyrics  from  the  Elizabethan 
dramatists,  yet  not  be  a  ballad.  Sumer  is  icumen  in  has 
a  refrain,  but  is  not  a  ballad;  the  Bannockburn  song  has 
a  refrain,  but  is  not  a  ballad.  On  the  other  hand,  a  lyric 
may  have  no  refrain  or  choral  repetition,  like  King  Est- 
mere,  or  Thomas  Rymer,  yet  be  a  ballad.  As  already 
pointed  out,  the  name  ballad  attached  itself  to  a  type 
of  lyric  which  is  pretty  far  removed  from  the  mediaeval 
lyric  type  of  early  dance  employment.  If  we  are  to  insist 
on  a  dance  element  in  a  lyric  which  we  are  to  classify 
as  a  ballad,  we  might  apply  the  name,  with  better  right, 
to  art  lyrics,  or  to  folk  lyrics  of  the  fluid  traditional 
type,  held  to  unity  and  memorableness  by  the  refrain, 
which  persist  in  the  ring-games  of  young  people  and  in 
children's  songs ;  or  we  should  restrict  it  to  genuine  dance 
songs,  of  which  we  have  many  of  equal  age  with  the 
majority  of  ballads  which  have  come  down  to  us. 

In  the  English  and  Scottish  ballads,  dancing  plays 
hardly  any  role.  It  is  referred  to  a  fair  number  of  times ; 
but  as  a  recreation  for  the  lords  and  ladies  who  appear 
in  the  ballads  it  plays  a  less  striking  part  than  does  the 
game  of  ball,  its  rival  and  a  recreation  with  which  it  was 

6»  Compare  "  Incremental  repetition  made  up  the  whole  frame 
of  The  Maid  Freed  from  the  Gallows  simply  because  such  ballads 
were  still  part  and  parcel  of  the  dance  "  ( The  Popular  Ballad,  p. 
117).  Repetition  is  emphasized  as  the  most  characteristic  feature  of 
ballads,  pp.  117-134,  etc. 


NARRATIVE  SONGS  AND  THE  DANCE     79 

often  combined.  It  is  far  less  frequent  than  reference 
to  songs  and  to  minstrelsy.  Mostly  the  allusions  are  to 
dancing  of  the  more  modern  type,  accompanied  by  the 
music  of  instruments;  and  they  bear  testimony  to  the 
coming  of  dance-modes  from  France.  A  few  typical  pas- 
sages are  the  following: 

Seek  no  minstrels  to  play,  mother, 

No  dancers  to  dance  in  your  room; 
But  tho  your  son  comes,  Leesome  Brand, 

Yet  he  comes  sorry  to  the  town. 

Leesome  Brand. 

There  was  two  little  boys  going  to  the  school, 

And  twa  little  boys  they  be, 
They  met  three  brothers  playing  at  the  ba, 

And  ladies  dancing,  hey. 

The  Two  Brothers. 

I'm  gauin,  I'm  gauin, 

I'm  gauin  to  Fraunce,  lady, 
When  I  come  back, 

I'll  learn  ye  a  dance,  lady. 

Rob  Roy. 

Another  text  ends: 

I  hae  been  in  foreign  lands, 
And  served  the  King  o'  France,  ladie; 

We  will  get  bagpipes, 
And  we'll  hae  a  dance,  ladie. 


Or: 


Get  dancers  here  to  dance,  she  sais, 

And  minstrels  for  to  play; 
For  here's  my  young  son,  Florentine, 

Come  here  wi  me  to  stay. 

The  Earl  of  Mar's  Daughter. 


80     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

Two  might  have  reference  to  dancing  of  the  older  type: 

Her  father  led  her  through  the  ha' 
Her  mither  danced  before  them  a'. 

The  Cruel  Brother. 

When  dinner  it  was  past  and  done, 

And  dancing  to  begin 
We'll  go  take  the  bride's  maidens, 

And  we'll  go  fill  the  ring. 

0  ben  then  cam  the  auld  French  lord, 
Saying,  Bride,  will  ye  dance  with  me? 

"Awa,  awa,  ye  auld  French  lord, 
Your  face  I  wowna  see." 

Fair  Janet. 

Fair  Janet,  with  its  theme  of  probation  by  dancing,  closely 
resembles  certain  Scandinavian  and  German  ballads,  but 
has  lessened  the  part  played  by  the  dance  test. 

The  internal  evidence  that  the  English  and  Scottish 
ballads  were  used  as  dance  songs  is  very  meager,  com- 
pared, for  example,  with  the  very  abundant  internal 
evidence  that  they  were  sung.  But  in  practice,  few 
scholars  would  now  make  special  claim  that  they  were 
used  as  dance  songs.  No  doubt  they  were,  here  and  there, 
as  in  late  times,  we  have  seen,  were  Barbara  Allen  and 
The  Two  Sisters,,  in  this  country.  The  refrains  of  several 
might  connect  them  with  the  dance,  as  Mrs.  Brown's 
The  Bonny  Birdy  (no.  82),  or  The  Maid  and  the  Palmer 
(no.  21).  But  most  sound  more  suitable  for  recital  or 
singing  than  to  accompany  rhythmic  motion.  Fitted  to 
dance  tunes  they  might  be  used  as  dance  songs,  but  typi- 
cally they  were  composed  for  other  purposes.  It  is  pretty 
hard  for  the  student  of  real  dance  song  to  feel  that  the 


NAKKATIVE  SONGS  AND  THE  DANCE     81 

mass  of  the  Child  pieces,  or  their  archetypes,  developed 
from  the  folk-dance.  Mediaeval  rural  throngs,  like  their 
descendants  to-day,  probably  danced  mostly  to  something 
already  familiar,  and  in  itself  suitable;  more  rarely  they 
may  have  danced  to  their  own  spontaneous  but  inconse- 
quential and  impermanent  improvisations.  The  typical 
mediaeval  dance  song  was,  however,  more  lyric  than  epic. 
The  English  and  Scottish  ballads  are  as  epic  as  they  are 
lyric. 

There  is  a  classic  passage  in  The  Complaynt  of  Scot- 
land™ 1549,  by  which  we  can  check  pretty  well  our 
assumptions  and  conclusions.  The  author  of  The  Com- 
playnt makes  his  "  shepherds "  (pretty  literary  and 
classical  shepherds  they  are,  genuine  shepherds  of  the 
"  Golden  Age  ")  tell  tales,  sing  songs,  and  afterwards 
dance  in  a  ring.  Among  the  48  tales  with  which  they 
amused  themselves,  alongside  Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales, 
Arthurian  romance,  and  classical  stories,  as  of  Hercules, 
or  of  Hero  and  Leander,  are  listed  the  tale  of  "  robene 
hude  and  litil  ihone,"  and  the  tale  of  the  "  zong  tamlene  " 
(Tamlane).  Among  the  36  songs,  are  the  Henry  VIII 
Pastance  with  gude  companye,  The  frog  cam  to  the  myl 
dur,  The  battel  of  the  hayrlau,  and  The  hunttis  of  cheuet 
—  probably  the  song  that  Sidney  praised ;  also  The 
perssee  and  the  mongumrye  met,  i.  e.,  The  Battle  of  Otter- 
bourne.  The  Child  pieces  referred  to  thus  far  have  been 
either  told  or  sung,  as  we  should  expect.  Then  comes  a 
list  of  30  dance  pieces  —  most  of  them  obviously  such,  as 
Al  cristyn  mennis  dance,  The  gosseps  dance,  The  alman 
haye,  The  dance  of  kyrlrynne,  Schatk  a  trot,  etc.  The 

«o  Edited  by  J.  A.  H.  Murray,  for  the  Early  English  Text  Society, 
1872,  vol.  1,  p.  63. 


82  THE  BALLAD  ART)  THE  DANCE 

list  is  headed  by  The  Hunt  Is  Up,  the  tune  of  which  is 
well  fitted  for  dancing.  No  Child  pieces  appear.  Num- 
ber 92,  Robene  hude,  is  probably  a  chanson  de  Robin  (see 
Cotgrave),  or  Robin  Hood  and  Maid  Marian  piece. 
There  were  many  Robin  Hood  dances,  and  they  are  not  to 
be  identified  with  the  Robin  Hood  ballads.  Number  93, 
Thorn  of  lyn,  is  not  the  ballad  Tamlane,  listed  among  the 
recited  pieces,  but  the  very  different  and  wholly  appro- 
priate song  of  Young  Thomlin,  licensed  in  1557-58. 
Number  108,  Ihonne  ermistrangis  dance,  is  the  one  pos- 
sible Child  piece  of  the  30 ;  but  neither  Mr.  Fur ni vail  nor 
Mr.  Murray  believes  it  to  be  identical  with  any  of  the 
four  "ballads  involving  Armstrongs  (Johnny  Armstrong, 
Johnny  Armstrong's  Last  Goodnight,  Jock  o'  the  Side, 
Dick  of  the  Cow}  which  have  come  down  to  us.  The 
Armstrong  ballads  in  Child's  collection  are  hardly  suitable 
as  dance  songs. 

Should  not  the  Complaynt's  roll  of  tales,  songs,  and 
dance  songs,  read  very  differently,  had  the  English  and 
Scottish  ballads  been  the  typical  songs  for  the  dances  of 
rural  throngs  ?  The  ballads  which  are  mentioned  are  not 
mentioned  as  dance  songs,  and  they  are  in  highly  literary 
and  aristocratic  company.  The  dance  songs  which  are 
mentioned  seem  to  be  exactly  of  the  suitable  type  which 
we  should  expect. 

Much  dance-song  material,  primitive,  medieval,  and 
modern  —  the  latter  in  our  still-existent  ring-dance  songs 
—  is  available,  from  which  to  make  observation  and  to 
generalize.  The  tendencies  to  be  inferred  from  it  are 
exactly  the  reverse  of  those  assumed  by  Professor  Gum- 
mere,  and  currently  accepted  in  America.61 

6i  That  belief  in  dance  origin,  emergence  from  the  illiterate,  com- 


NARRATIVE  SONGS  AND  THE  DANCE     83 

1.  When  songs  already  existent  are  used  as  communal 
dance  songs,  they  tend  to  retrograde  to  simple  repetitions 
of  striking  lines  or  titles.     If  narrative,  they  are  likely  to 
lose  the  story.     As  for  primitive  dance  songs,  they  are 
never  narrative. 

2.  The  repetitions  of  communal  dance  songs  are  much 
more  abundant  than  the  repetitions  of  the  ballads,   and 
they  belong  more  genuinely  to  the  fabric  of  the  song. 
They  are  not  of  the  symmetrical  art  type,  of  regular  re- 
currence, the  refrain  type  proper,  but  are  cruder,  or  more 
pervading.     Often  some  striking  formula  recurs  over  and 
over,   and   is   the   main   song.     For  ballads   proper,    the 
refrain    is   not   the   most    stable    element   but   the    most 
fluctuating. 

3.  There  is  no  tendency  for  dance  songs,  whether  situa- 
tion songs  or  dialogue  songs,  to  develop  epic  elements  or 
to  become  "  refined  and  ennobled  by  tradition,"  i.  e.,  to 
become  real  ballads.62     Real  ballads  used  as  dance  songs 
tend  to  decay,  through  the  wearing  process  of  dance  usage. 
Songs  used  as  dance  songs  do  not  tend  to  develop  into 
ballads,  but  rather  to  become  simplified  to  some  striking 
line  or  formula. 

4.  As   regards  form,   genuine  communal   dance   songs 
are  not  necessarily  or  invariably  in  ballad  stanza,  but  of 

munal  improvisation,  epic  development,  and  the  priority  of  dialogue 
and  situation  songs,  has  current  American  acceptance,  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  such  belief  is  set  forth,  without  hesitation  or  question, 
in  the  two  latest  American  ballad  anthologies:  Professor  W.  M. 
Hart's  English  Popular  Ballads,  1916,  and  Professor  G.  H.  StempePs 
A  Book  of  Ballads,  1917. 

62  Gummere,  The  Popular  Ballad,  p.  76,  "  The  refining  and  en- 
nobling processes  of  tradition "  .  .  .  "  ennobled  and  enriched  in  its 
traditional  course,"  p.  28,  etc. 


84     THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

more  fluid  and  variable  pattern.  They  exhibit  no  one 
fixed  stanzaic  type.  Sometimes  they  consist  of  but  one 
short  stanza. 

We  are  hardly  justified  by  the  evidence,  then,  in  saying 
that  the  English  ballads  represent  a  lyric  type  which  has 
been  "  divorced  from  the  dance,  originally  their  vital  con- 
dition." The  process  is  not  that  ballads,  originating  in 
the  dance,  find  permanence  and  gain  epic  character  when 
cut  loose  from  it.  Rather  do  already  existing  ballads  find 
themselves  utilized  for,  adapted  to,  and  mutilated  in  dance 
song  usage.  There  is  no  testimony  that  the  structure  of 
the  English  ballads  rests  upon  the  dance,  but  rather  the 
contrary;  for  theirs  is  not  the  structure  of  the  normal 
and  more  appropriate  dance  song.  That  the  dance  songs 
of  primitive  peoples,  and  the  earliest  dance  songs  that  we 
have  in  English,  and  our  latest  surviving  dance  songs  are 
all  three  lyric,  not  lyric-epic,  does  not  point  to  the  origin 
of  the  English  ballad  type  by  "  divorce  from  the  dance." 

There  are  three  forms  of  psychic  suggestion  in  poetry; 
first,  emotional,  as  in  the  simple  lyric ;  second,  ideational, 
as  in  the  narrative;  third,  motor,  as  in  the  refrain  type, 
coupled  with  simple  imperatives.  The  first  and  second 
types  may  be  associated  with  action  in  the  sense  of  conduct, 
and  they  are  so  associated  in  primitive  poetry.  They 
are  sometimes  continued  traditionally  in  what  are  called 
"  dances,"  but  are  really  drama ;  that  is,  they  become 
histrionic.  The  third  type  is  the  only  form  fundamentally 
associated  with  the  dance,  and  it  is  psychologically  simple, 
i.  e.,  presentative  not  representative.  This  psychical  dis- 
tinction should  be  borne  in  mind  in  study  of  the  subject. 
Not  all  lyrics  tempt  to  movement,  and  narratives  (ballads 


NARRATIVE  SONGS  AND  THE  DANCE  85 

proper)  never,  one  would  think,  tempt  to  measured  move- 
ment of  the  dance  type. 

Association  with  the  dance  of  the  festal  multitude  may 
be  in  place  for  the  French  ballade,  or  for  the  Italian 
ballata,  but  our  own  ballads  do  not  include  pieces  which 
were  primarily  dance  songs.  That  the  English  ballad 
type  had  its  genesis  in  the  folk-dance  seems  to  be  not  only 
unproved  but  unlikely.  Those  who  believe  in  dance  gen- 
esis for  the  lyric  in  general  may  find  in  the  dance  the 
ultimate  genesis  of  the  lyric-epic  type  which  we  call  ballad. 
But,  in  that  case,  no  attempt  should  be  made  so  sharply 
to  differentiate  the  ballad  in  origins  from  other  types  of 
lyric  verse.  Those  scholars  who  hold  both  positions  at  the 
same  time,  affirming  that  ballads  originated  as  dance  songs, 
yet  that  they  were  manifestly  composed  in  some  way 
utterly  different  from  other  lyric  verse,  are  maintaining 
positions  which  are  incompatible. 

To  the  present  writer,  the  gift  of  song  seems  as  instinc- 
tive in  man  as  the  gift  of  rhythmic  motion,  not  a  develop- 
ment from  the  latter.  Both  were  his  from  the  first.  No 
festal  dancing  chorus  of  a  unanimous  throng  is  needed  to 
account  for  the  song  of  birds,  and  song,  the  expression 
of  emotion,  not  motion,  may  well  be  as  instinctive  in  man 
as  in  birds.  Other  lyric  forms,  as  lullabies,  conjuring  or 
healing  songs,  labor  songs,  love  songs,  are  as  primitive  as 
choral  dance  songs,  not  offshoots  of  the  latter.  Children 
sing  instinctively,  and  they  make  their  own  songs,  with- 
out waiting  for  the  communal  inspiration  of  group  danc- 
ing; and  it  is  commonly  assumed  that  the  development 
of  the  child  mirrors  that  of  the  race.  The  beliefs  that 
from  the  dance  emerged  music  and  rhythmical  utterance, 


86  THE  BALLAD  AND  THE  DANCE 

or  song,  that  dance  songs  are  the  earliest  lyrics,  that 
narrative  songs  are  the  earliest  dance  songs,  and  that  the 
English  ballad  type  had  its  genesis  in  the  dance,  are  neither 
borne  out  by  the  evidence,  nor  intrinsically  probable. 


CHAPTER  III 
BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITERATE 

"  A  ballad,"  says  F.  Sidgwick,  "  is,  and  always  has 
been,  so  far  from  being  a  literary  form  that  it  is  in  its 
essentials  not  literary,  and  it,  we  shall  see,  has  no  single 
form.  It  is  of  a  genre  not  only  older  than  the  Epic,  older 
than  Tragedy,  but  older  than  literature,  older  than  the 
alphabet.  It  is  lore,  and  belongs  to  the  illiterate."  1 
"  You  cannot  write  a  popular  ballad ;  in  truth  you  cannot 
even  write  it  down.  At  best  you  can  but  record  a  number 
of  variants,  and  in  the  act  of  writing  each  one  down  you 
must  remember  that  you  are  helping  to  kill  that  ballad." 
Professor  Gummere  speaks  of  "  The  homogeneous  and 
unlettered  state  of  the  ballad-makers  "  and  remarks  that 
"  Indeed,  paper  and  ink,  the  agents  of  preservation  in  the 
case  of  ordinary  verse,  are  for  ballads  the  agents  of  de- 
struction." 2  Professor  Charles  S.  Baldwin  refers  to 
"  unrecorded  tales ;  tales  not  written  but  sung ;  tales  com- 
posed, not  for  gentlefolk,  but  for  the  common  unlettered 
people.  These  are  the  ballads."  "  Beginning  in  what- 
ever way  among  the  common  people,"  he  continues,  "  they 
were  cherished,  circulated,  and  handed  down  among  the 
common  people."  3 

1  The  Ballad,  pp.  7,  39. 

2  The  Popular  Ballad,  and  "  Ballads  "  in  A  Library  of  the  World's 
Best  Literature. 

s  English  Medi&val  Literature,  pp.  242,  331. 

87 


88          BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITERATE 

When  contemporary  English  and  American  scholars 
speak  of  "  ballads  "  they  have  reference  to  narrative  songs 
of  the  character  of  those  included  by  Professor  F.  J. 
Child  in  his  English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads.  Al- 
though Professor  Child's  name,  "  popular "  ballads,  is 
much  the  safer  name,  it  is  customary  to  speak  of  the  pieces 
in  his  collection  as  "  traditional  "  ballads,  and  to  think 
of  oral  preservation  as  a  test  of  their  inclusion.  In  fact, 
it  is  pretty  widely  customary  at  the  present  time  to  exag- 
gerate the  part  played  by  oral  tradition  in  preserving  these 
pieces,  to  endow  it,  as  it  were,  with  a  monopoly  which  it 
should  not  have,  and  to  be  over-insistent  upon  the  associa- 
tion of  them  with  the  illiterate.  In  consequence,  it  is  also 
customary  to  speak  with  misleading  certainty  as  to  their 
origins,  and  as  to  the  humble  and  unlettered  character  of 
the  audience  to  whom  they  were  addressed,  and  to  place 
emphasis  upon  their  total  lack  of  literary  quality. 

It  may  be  well  as  a  corrective  to  re-examine  some  of 
their  characteristics.  Let  us  look  first  at  the  sources  of 
their  recovery,  recalling  as  a  preliminary  a  few  more  of 
the  accepted  generalizations.  "  The  important  fact  of 
ballad  transmission,"  says  Professor  Walter  Morris  Hart, 
"  is  their  singing  or  recitation  from  memory  by  people 
who  do  not  read  or  write."  4  "  Our  typical  ballads,"  says 
Professor  G.  H.  Stempel,  "  have  come  to  us  pretty  straight 
from  unlettered  people  living  in  out  of  the  way  places, 
people  of  no  converse  with  literature."  5  Or,  to  quote 
from  Professor  Gummere,  "  The  ballad  ...  is  a  narra- 
tive lyric  handed  down  from  generation  to  generation  of  a 
homogeneous  and  unlettered  community,";  and  "... 

*  English  Popular  Ballads  (1916),  p.  47. 
54.  Book  of  Ballads  (1917),  p.  xxiii. 


SOURCES  OF  RECOVERY  89 

Oral  transmission,  the  test  of  the  ballad,  is,  of  course,  no- 
where possible  save  in  an  unlettered  community."  6 


Some  of  Professor  Child's  texts  have  been  recovered 
from  oral  tradition  of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  cen- 
turies in  England  and  Scotland.     Yet  a  surprising  num- 
ber, in  fact,  the  majority  of  the  best  texts,  have  not  come 
from  oral  sources.     They  have  been  preserved  in  books, 
or   printed   sheets,   or  manuscripts.     Some   of  his   most 
valuable  sources  for  ballads  were  the  Pepys  Manuscript 
and  the  Percy  Manuscript;  and  neither  Pepys  nor  Percy 
cared  only  for  oral  sources,  or  even  mainly  for  them,  when 
they    were    gathering    their    pieces    together.     Professor 
Child,  like  his  predecessors,  drew  also  upon  Elizabethan 
and  later  song-books,  or  Garlands,  and  he  derived  a  large 
number  of  his  texts  from  printed  broadsides.     In  much 
the  same  way,  in  contemporary  collections  of  folk-songs, 
made  in  our  own  country,  some  of  the  best  "  finds  "  have 
come  from  manuscript  books,  into  which,  like  the  Eliza- 
bethan song-lovers,  the  owners  copied  their  favorite  pieces. 
Such  transcriptions  have  helped  to  preserve  innumerable 
valuable  texts.     Contrary  to  the  belief  of  many  leading 
scholars,  reduction  to  print  does  not  "  kill  "  good  ballads, 
but  helps  to  keep  them  alive.     Insistence  upon  oral  trans- 
mission, as  an  essential  for  their  inclusion,  would  have 
barred  a  majority  of  Professor  Child's  best  texts.     It  is 
hardly  exaggeration  to  affirm  that  the  most  effective  texts 
in  the  Child  collection  are  those  which  have  least  claim  to 
oral  transmission. 

«  The  Popular  Ballad,  p.  13;  "Ballads"  in  Library  of  the  Worltfs 
Best  Literature,  n,  p.  1307. 


90         BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITERATE 

Even  when  typical  ballads  have  been  recovered  from 
oral  tradition,  such  recovery  is  not  usually  from  the  most 
unlettered  or  even  from  people  of  average  gifts ;  but  rather 
from  special  individuals.  More  likely  than  not,  they  are 
those  among  their  immediate  circle  having  the  most  vigor- 
ous minds  and  the  best  memories  —  those  of  outstanding 
rather  than  humble  personality.  Every  collector  of  folk- 
lore knows  the  experience  of  coming  upon  these  special 
people  and  deriving  from  them  his  best  texts.  The  cele- 
brated Mrs.  Brown  of  Falkland,  that  source  par  excellence 
of  superior  ballads,  was  no  spokesman  of  a  humble  and 
homogeneous  society  but  the  daughter  of  an  Aberdeen  pro- 
fessor and  the  wife  of  Dr.  Brown,  minister  of  Falkland. 
She  learned  her  ballads  by  hearing  them  sung  by  her 
mother  or  by  an  old  maid-servant.  "  Mrs.  Brown,"  says 
Dr.  Robert  Anderson  in  his  letter  to  Bishop  Percy,  "  is 
fond  of  ballad  poetry,  writes  verses,  and  reads  everything 
in  the  marvellous  way."  7  Mrs.  Brown  was  far  from  illit- 
erate, but  it  would  never  do  to  rule  out  her  ballads  from 
the  Child  collection.  The  gap  would  be  great.  Even  had 
Mrs.  Brown  somehow  derived  her  songs  ultimately  from 
the  peasantry,  the  likelihood  would  remain  that  they  were 
not  songs  originating  among  the  peasantry  and  carried  over 
the  borders  of  some  local  community  to  pass  down  from 
generation  to  generation.  They  were  probably  the  popu- 
lar songs,  mediaeval  in  style,  of  a  period  long  antecedent, 

7  John  Nichols,  Illustrations  of  the  Literary  History  of  the  Eight- 
eenth Century,  vol.  vii.  (1848),  pp.  88-90. 

The  body  of  Danish  ballads,  collected  by  Grundtvig,  comes  mostly 
from  the  manuscripts  of  noble  Danish  ladies  of  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries,  who  wrote  them  down  as  they  were  current 
in  aristocratic  usage.  Though  less  cultured  than  Mrs.  Brown,  these 
ladies  were  far  from  humble  and  illiterate. 


SOURCES  OF  RECOVERY  91 

forgotten  in  their  original  homes  and  lingering  in  her 
day  only  in  the  byways.     In  general,  the  fact  that  songs 
have  been  preserved  in  remote  districts  and  among  the 
humble,   is  no  proof  that  they  were  composed  in  such 
places  and  by  such  people,  spreading  from  local  impro- 
visation into  wider  currency ;  but  it  is  rather  proof  of  the 
contrary.     The  popular  songs  for  entertainment  in  social 
centres,  the  current  songs  of  upper  life,  or  of  the  main 
population,  soon  fade  from  the  knowledge  of  the  audiences 
which  knew  them  first,  to  be  replaced  by  those  of  later 
composition.     At  the  point  of  emergence  for  popular  song, 
lateness  is  an  asset.     But  by  the  time  that  new  songs  have 
won  currency  on  the  stage,  or  in  the  city,  or  let  us  say, 
in  the  castle,  or  the  market-place,  or  the  ale-house,  or  the 
fair  —  the  old  have  found  their  way  into  remote  places  and 
are  likely  to  persist  there,  especially  among  that  more  fixed 
and  sheltered  element  of  the  population,  the  women.     As 
for  the  crude  pieces  that  the  "  people  "  sometimes  impro- 
vise —  not  very  often  or  very  characteristically  at  that  8 
—  they  lack  memorable  quality  except  as  they  borrow  from 
or  are  based  upon  better  pieces;  and  they  lack  impetus 
for,  and  modes  of,   diffusion.     Where  something  of  the 
kind  may  be  studied  now,  in  existing  society,  observation 
shows  that  such  pieces,  whether  composed  by  cowboys  or 
ranchmen  or  lumbermen  or  negroes,  or  in  social  gatherings 
of  the  more  sophisticated,  are  those  which  are  soonest  to 
die.     Certainly  the  songs  which  are  most  vigorous  among 
such  peoples  are  those  reaching  them  in  some  other  way, 
with  a  pedigree  of  bygone  vogue  behind  them.     The  real 
songs  emerging  from  the  unlettered  are  too  crude,  ungram- 

8  Usually  they  are  very  short,   and   often  some  kind  of  personal 
satire  or  lampoon,  and  are  based  on  some  familiar  model. 


92          BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITEKATE 

matical,  fragmentary,  uninteresting  to  attract  any  one  but 
the  student  of  folk-song.  And  usually  he,  too,  passes  them 
by;  for  mostly  he  is  stalking  or  seeking  to  salvage  pieces 
of  older  style  and  obviously  pedigreed. 

To  bring  up  a  few  examples,  when  we  first  hear  of 
Barbara  Allen,  it  is  a  stage  song,  liked  by  Samuel  Pepys: 
"  In  perfect  pleasure  I  was  to  hear  her  [Mrs.  Knipps,  an 
actress]  sing  her  little  Scotch  song  of  Barbara  Allen." 
A  hundred  years  later,  Goldsmith  heard  it  from  "  our  old 
dairymaid."  Today,  if  we  are  to  hear  some  of  the  popular 
songs,  sentimental  or  martial,  romantic  or  political  of  the 
Civil  War,  we  are  more  likely  to  come  upon  them  among 
villagers,  surviving  in  remote  and  conservative  commu- 
nities, than  we  are  in  the  circles  which  knew  them  first. 
After  the  Ball  was  a  popular  stage  song  in  the  1890's.  It 
is  still  vigorous  in  village  communities  and  on  western 
ranches,  though  it  long  ago  died  out  in  the  city  parlor  and 
on  the  stage.  The  sentimental  Lorena,  which  had  tremen- 
dous vogue  in  the  middle  decades  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, lingers  as  a  favorite  song  among  mid-western  cow- 
boys. One  of  the  ballads  in  Fletcher's  Knight  of  the  Burn- 
ing Pestle,  There  was  a  Romish  Lady,  of  Paris  properly, 
can  be  identified  as  the  ancestor  of  a  but  slightly  mutilated, 
authorless  narrative  in  the  ballad  style,  existing  in  manu- 
script song-books  in  the  Central  West,  and  having  faint 
currency  elsewhere. 

It  is  to  be  expected  surely  that  an  older  type  of  English 
song,  mediaeval  in  style, —  replaced  by  another  style  and 
another  set  of  characters  after  the  advent  of  printing  and 
the  break-up  of  mediaeval  conditions, —  should  linger 
among  nursemaids  and  "  ancient  dames,"  among  the  spin- 
ners, pipers,  shepherds,  and  weavers  of  remoter  commu- 


SOUKCES  OF  RECOVERY  93 

nities,  often  with  singular  fidelity  of  text.  But  it  should 
not  be  taken  as  evidence  that  those  from  whom  they  are 
recovered  were  either  the  creators  or  the  inspirers  of  them. 
It  is  surprising  that  this  should  need  emphasis ;  but  in 
general,  the  process  in  literature,  as  in  language,  in  games, 
in  social  usages  and  often  in  manner  of  garb,  is  likely  to  be 
a  downward  process,  from  the  higher  to  the  lower,  rather 
than  one  of  ascent  from  lower  to  higher.  Here  are  some 
random  illustrations.  The  game  of  "  tag "  now  linger- 
ing only  among  children,  was  according  to  W.  W.  Newell 
the  diversion  of  maids  of  honor  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth ; 
and  similarly,  the  knightly  practice  of  holding  tourna- 
ments now  survives  only  in  the  game  usage  of  children. 
Pepys's  stage  song  of  Barbara  Allen  was  used  sometimes 
as  a  play-party  song  early  in  the  nineteenth  century  in 
New  England.  The  Maid  Freed  from  the  Gallows  has 
been  used  in  children's  games.  On  the  whole  the  best  ex- 
amples of  the  sinking  from  higher  to  lower  may  be  seen 
in  the  texts  of  the  ballads  themselves.9  Lord  Randal  has 
become  in  America,  Jimmy  Randall,  Johnny  Randall, 
Jimmy  Ramble,  Jimmy  Randolph,  and  the  like;  he  has 
sunk  to  the  social  class  of  those  who  sing  of  him.10  The 
Two  Brothers,  Sir  John  and  Sir  Hugh,  of  the  Scotch 
ballad  have  passed,  in  some  American  versions,  into  two 
little  Western  schoolboys.  The  game  song  Here  Comes 
Three  Dukes  A-Roving  has  become  in  the  Central  West, 
Here  Comes  Three  Ducks  A-Roving.  To  pass  to  an 

9  The  contrary  process,  bringing  improvement,  is  very  rare.     An 
example   is  Mr.   C.   J.   Sharp's  text  of  the   American  negro  ballad 
John  Hardy,  improved  by  incorporating  some  stanzas  from  The  Lass 
of  Roch  Royal.     See  also  J.  H.  Cox,  John  Hardy,  in  The  Journal  of 
American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  xxxn,  p.  505.     1919. 

10  See  pp.  122,  196. 


94          BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITERATE 

illustration  from  language,  the  pronoun  you,  the  plural  of 
thou,  had  its  origin,  when  applied  to  one  person,  in  the 
usage  of  the  Roman  Emperors,  who  liked  to  be  addressed 
as  counting  for  more  than  one  human  being.  Then  it 
became  a  courtesy-form  in  the  usage  of  aristocratic  Europe. 
In  English  speech,  it  has  now  been  generalized  for  all 
classes,  even  the  humblest,  and  the  old  singular  has  disap- 
peared from  the  everyday  language.  But  no  one  who  ad- 
dresses a  single  person  as  you  recalls  the  Roman  Emper- 
ors, or  the  aristocrats  of  Europe  from  whom  this  usage 
is  derived.11 

It  forces  the  plausibilities  to  assume  that  village  throngs 
evolved  the  type  exemplified  by  pieces  like  Lord  Thomas 
and  Fair  Annet,  King  Estmere,  Lord  Lovel,  Marie  Ham- 
ilton, Lady  Isabel,  Lady  Maisry,  and  all  the  other  ballads, 

11  Some  further  examples  of  the  same  process  are  easily  cited. 
Riddles  were  a  highly  literary  type  of  literature  in  the  Old  English 
period ;  compare  the  Mnigmata,  of  Aldhelm  ( following  Symposius ) , 
Taetwine,  and  Eusebius,  and  those  in  the  vernacular  preserved  in  the 
Exeter  Book.  In  Middle  English,  riddling  has  lost  vogue  in  higher 
literature  but  appears  in  ballads.  The  Cupids  and  Venuses  and 
pierced  hearts  of  the  mediaeval  and  renaissance  amourists  now  linger 
almost  exclusively  in  popular  valentines.  A  Maypole  song,  forgotten 
elsewhere,  survives  in  the  ring-games  of  Georgia  negroes  (Loraine 
Darby  in  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  xxx,  1917).  Literary 
animal-tales,  as  of  the  frog  and  the  mouse,  were  common  in  the 
fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centuries.  A  song,  "  The  moste  strange 
weddinge  of  the  Frogge  and  the  Mouse,"  was  entered  in  the  Sta- 
tioners' Register  in  1580;  and  the  words  and  music  of  such  a  song 
have  come  down  to  us.  "  The  froggie  came  to  the  mill  door  "  was 
sung  on  the  Edinburgh  stage  in  the  eighteenth  century,  according 
to  J.  A.  H.  Murray  in  his  edition  of  The  Complaynt  of  Scotland. 
"  The  Frog's  Courtship,"  by  the  twentieth  century,  survives  only  as 
a  nursery  song. 

Perhaps  more  significant  is  the  oft-expatiated-upon  fact  that  the 
debris  of  pagan  religions  is  found  in  folk-lore  and  literature  alike. 


AUDIENCE  AND  AUTHORSHIP  95 

appropriate  in  feudal  castles,  of  kings  and  lords  and  ladies 
and  their  adventures;  but  it  is  wholly  plausible  and  the 
development  is  easily  paralleled  if  we  assume  the  con- 
trary process,  of  descent  from  higher  usage  to  the  peas- 
antry, not  of  ascent  from  the  peasantry  to  the  aristocracy. 
Yet  let  it  be  said  once  more  that  the  number  of  texts 
actually  recovered  from  the  peasantry,  not  from  a  more 
lettered  source,  is  customarily  exaggerated.  In  practice, 
whatever  the  theories  upheld,  oral  tradition  among  the 
humble  has  never  been  made  an  essential  for  the  inclu- 
sion of  a  text  among  collections  of  popular  song.  It  has 
been  made  no  such  essential,  for  example,  as  anonymity  of 
authorship  or  as  traces  of  a  mediaeval  style.  Nor,  in  prac- 
tice, has  recovery  from  among  the  unlettered,  rather  than 
from  some  higher  or  written  source,  been  made  an  essen- 
tial for  the  classification  of  a  narrative  song  as  a  popular 
ballad. 

II. AUDIENCE   AND    AUTHORSHIP    AS    MIRRORED   IN 

THE  BAIJLADS 

Special  emphasis  is  often  placed  upon  the  social  solidar- 
ity of  the  period  from  which  the  popular  ballads  emerged. 
Professor  F.  J.  Child  had  in  mind  the  English  and  Scot- 
tish ballads  w"hen  he  wrote,  "  The  condition  of  society  in 
which  a  truly  national  or  popular  poetry  appears  explains 
the  character  of  such  poetry.  It  is  a  condition  in  which 
the  people  are  not  divided  by  political  organization  and 
book  culture  into  markedly  distinct  classes,  in  which,  con- 
sequently there  is  such  community  of  ideas  and  feelings 
that  the  whole  people  form  one  individual."  12  Said 
Professor  Henry  Beers,  "  We  have  to  do  here  with  the 
12  Article  "  Ballads  "  in  Johnson's  Cyclopaedia. 


96          BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITEEATE 

folk-song,  the  traditional  ballad,  product  of  the  people 
at  a  time  when  the  people  was  homogeneous  and  the  separ- 
ation between  lettered  and  unlettered  classes  had  not  yet 
taken  place."  13  "  This  homogeneous  character  of  the 
ballad-making  folk,  by  the  way,  is  enough  to  explain  the 
high  rank  of  most  personages  in  the  ballads  —  princes, 
knights,  and  so  on,"  said  Professor  Gummere.14  Else- 
where he  remarked  more  specificially,  "  Those  high-born 
people  who  figure  in  traditional  ballads  —  Childe  Waters, 
Lady  Maisry,  and  the  rest  —  do  not  require  us  to  assume 
composition  in  aristocratic  circles ;  for  the  lower  classes  of 
the  people  in  the  ballad  days  had  no  separate  literature, 
and  a  ballad  of  the  folk  belonged  to  the  community  as  a 
whole.  The  same  habit  of  thought,  the  same  standard  of 
action,  rules  alike  the  noble  and  his  meanest  retainer." 

The  unmistakable  fact  is  tha^  judging  from  the  ballads 
themselves,  they  were  composed  primarily  for  the  delec- 
tation of  the  upper  classes.  The  difficulty  with  the  view 
set  forth  in  the  various  quotations  just  cited  is  that  the 
conditions  which  they  assume  do  not  fit  anywhere,  at  any 
stage,  in  the  chronology  of  society.  The  generalization  is 
not  made  of  primitive  peoples,  among  whom,  contrary  to 
the  usual  view  of  literary  historians,  composition  is  not 
characteristically  "  communal "  but  individual,15  but  it 

is  English  Romanticism  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  p.  272. 

i*  Old  English  Ballads,  Introd.  p.  xxvii;  "Ballads"  in  A  Library 
of  the  World's  Best  Literature,  vol.  in,  p.  1307.  To  these  citations 
may  be  added  the  opinion  of  Professor  G.  L.  Kittredge,  who  be- 
lieves that  the  ballads  "  belonged,  in  the  first  instance,  to  the  whole 
people,  at  a  time  when  there  were  no  formal  divisions  of  literate 
and  illiterate;  when  the  intellectual  interests  of  all  were  substan- 
tially identical,  from  the  king  to  the  peasant."  Introduction  to 
English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads,  p.  xii. 

16  Compare  the  views  of  anthropologists.     The  institution   of  the 


AUDIENCE  AND  AUTHOKSHIP  97 

would  be  far  truer  of  primitive  than  of  mediaeval  society. 
Even  for  the  pre-Norman  period,  one  cannot  think  of  the 
thrall  or  serf  creating  song  of  the  same  type  as  the  court 
scop  or  the  noble.  If  Gurth  in  Ivanhoe  sang  songs,  they 
would  not  be  of  the  same  character  as  those  of  Richard 
Coeur-de-Lion.  There  was  no  period  when  "  in  a  common 
atmosphere  of  ignorance,  so  far  as  book-lore  is  concerned, 
one  habit  of  thought  and  one  standard  of  action  animate 
every  member  from  prince  to  ploughboy."  Try  to  imagine 
Jack  Straw's  "  menye  "  ruled  by  the  same  habit  of  thought 
as  Chaucer's  Squire,  or  Froissart's  Jacquerie  by  the  same 
standard  of  action  as  Froissart  himself.  Chaucer  knows 
his  contemporary  society  too  well  to  place  the  same  quality 
of  matter  in  the  mouths  of  his  higher  and  his  lower  char- 
acters. The  interests  and  the  tastes  of  the  mediaeval  nobil- 
ity and  the  mediaeval  peasantry  were  no  more  identical  than 
were  their  occupations  or  their  costumes  or  their  destinies 
in  general. 

Songs  of  the  adventures  of  the  nobly  born,  of  the  deeds 
of  the  men  of  noble  houses,  were  not  addressed  primarily  to 
throngs  of  the  rural  variety,  nor  were  they  evolved  by  such 
throngs  —  not  even  the  songs  of  Robin  Hood,  for  whom 
the  ballads  claim  noble  descent,  or  whom  some  of  them 
picture  as  an  outlawed  noble.  In  our  earliest  reference  to 
him  he  is  placed  alongside  Randolph,  Earl  of  Chester.16 

bwd  appears  in  all  the  earliest  Indo-European  literatures.  There 
must  have  been  (one  would  conjecture)  ur- Aryan  bards.  If  so, 
there  is  here  a  strong  argument  for  high-born  literary  tradition. 

i«  Piers  Plowman,  B  text : 

"  I  cannot  perfectly  my  paternoster,  as  the  priest  it  singeth, 

But  I  can  rhymes  of  Robin  Hood  and  Randolph,  Earl  of  Chester." 
Whether  these  "  rhymes  "  were  or  were  not  ballads,  or  ballads  of 
the  Child  type,  it  is  impossible  to  determine. 


98          BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITERATE 

The  very  formula  of  introduction,  used  in  the  Geste,  "  Lyth 
and  listen,  gentlemen,"  suggests  that  his  adventures  orig- 
inally entertained  the  higher  not  the  lower  classes.  Robin 
Hood  Newly  Revived  calls  upon  "  gentlemen  ...  in  this 
bower  "  to  listen.  Robin  is  as  "  courteous  "  as  a  knight 
errant.  "  So  curteyse  as  outlawe  as  he  was  one  "  was 
never  found,  says  the  Geste,  and  he  is  as  devoted  to  "  our 
lady  "  as  the  most  chivalrous  knight.17  But  most  of  the 
ballads  have  much  more  of  the  aristocratic  in  them  than  do 
the  ballads  of  Robin  Hood.  Where  we  have  the  genuine 
improvisations  of  the  unlettered,  they  deal  always  with 
themselves,  or  with  happenings  of  near  interest,  in  their 
own  region,  or  involving  their  own  circle,  not  with  the 
interests  and  adventures  and  experiences  of  a  widely 
severed  class  —  the  governing  class.18  If  the  peasant 
throngs  of  the  Middle  Ages  improvised  songs  we  can 
imagine  pretty  well  the  crude  character  of  their  impro- 
visations, and  their  themes.  They  did  not  concern  the 
love  affairs  of  the  nobly  born,  and  knightly  doings  in 
hall  and  bower.  Nor  did  they  concern  the  exploits  of 
nobles.  It  is  known  that  the  great  houses  of  mediaeval 
England  and  Scotland  kept  their  own  hereditary  family 
bards,  who  composed  pieces  to  be  recited  or  sung,  not  for 
existence  in  written  form,  and  their  themes  were  the  feats 
of  their  clan  or  of  the  noble  houses  with  which  they  were 

IT  In  any  case,  it  will  hardly  do  to  speak  of  the  Robin  Hood  cycle 
as  "  confined  to  humble  tradition  and  the  interest  of  a  class " 
(Gummere,  The  Popular  Ballad,  271).  And  alongside  the  Robin 
Hood  ballads,  telling  of  archery,  we  should  recall  Ascham's  Toxo- 
philus,  celebrating  archery,  in  its  decay,  for  the  upper  classes,  in 
prose. 

is  See  pp.  153-161. 


AUDIENCE  AOT>  AUTHORSHIP  99 

connected.  Professor  Firth  is  probably  right 19  when  he 
thinks  he  detects  fragments  remaining  of  several  cycles  — 
a  cycle  about  the  Percys,  as  the  first  ballad  of  Chevy  Chase, 
about  the  Stanleys,  as  The  Rose  of  England,  and  about  the 
Howards,  as  Flodden  Field  and  Sir  Andrew  Barton.  Such 
a  mode  of  composition  would  account,  too,  for  the  vitality 
of  these  pieces,  as  well  as  for  their  quality.  If  the  men-at- 
arms  of  the  Borderers  made  their  own  songs  to  celebrate 
their  deeds,  as  Professor  Gummere  thinks,20  their  "  com- 
munal "  songs  would  have  had  little  chance  of  preservation 
beside  the  popular  songs,  for  oral  destination,  of  the  bards 
employed  for  that  purpose,  repeated  by  them  on  notable 
occasions  and  becoming  traditional. 

The  social  atmosphere  of  the  ballads  is  the  atmosphere  of 
the  upper  classes.  Certainly  no  peasant  audience  or 
authorship  is  mirrored  in  them.21  The  picture  we  get 
from  them  is  a  picture  of  the  life  of  chivalry,  not  of  the 

!» C.  H.  Firth,  The  Ballad  History  of  the  Reigns  of  the  Later 
Tudors,  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Historical  Society,  3d  series,  vol. 
m,  London,  1909. 

20  The  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature,  n,  ch.   xvii,  p. 
453;  also  The  Popular  Ballad,  p.  250. 

21  The  earliest  reference  to  The  Fair  Flower  of  Northumberland 
mentions  it  as  sung  before  the  King  and  the  Queen.     According  to 
Thomas    Deloney     (Reprint    by    R.    Sievers,    Palaestra,  xxv,    1904, 
Historic  of  Jno.  Winchcomb,  p.  195),  to  whom  we  owe  our  earliest 
text,   maidens   "  in    dulcet   manner    chanted  out  this   song,  two   of 
them    singing    the    ditty    and    all    the    rest    bearing    the    burden." 
Seven  versions  of  the  ballad  have  survived  in  all,  but  that  given  by 
Deloney  is  the  only  one  that  is  early.     It  is  also  unquestionably  the 
best  version.     Ophelia's  songs  in  Hamlet  are  of  ballad  quality,  an- 
other   evidence    of    the    aristocratic    currency    and    acceptability    of 
ballads  in  the  age  of  Elizabeth.     The  popularity  of  Danish  ballads  in 
the  highest  circles  is  well  known,  and  when  they  were  first  printed 
it  was  through  the  favor  of  the  Queen. 


100        BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITEEATE 

doings  of  the  common  people ;  such  as  we  have,  for  example, 
from  genuinely  "  communal  "  ranch  or  lumberman  or  cow- 
boy or  fisherman  or  negro  songs  today.  And  the  same 
composers  who  made  heroic  and  historical  narratives  for 
their  masculine  hearers  might  well  have  made  romantic  and 
other  pieces,  on  familiar  or  novel  themes,  for  the  delecta- 
tion of  their  nobly-born  women  hearers,  or  of  mixed  audi- 
ences. Such  songs  were  short,  or  fairly  short,  of  a  type 
suited  for  oral  recital  or  for  singing  or  memorizing.  The 
English  and  Scottish  ballads  seem  to  have  affiliations  with 
classical  narratives,  mediaeval  romances,  scriptural  matter, 
and  lives  of  saints.  There  are  also  many  plots  which,  as 
Professor  Ker  points  out,22  could  have  existed  only  as 
ballad  plots;  it  is  as  ballads  that  they  seem  to  have  been 
created,  and  it  is  as  ballads  that  they  are  memorable. 
Some  of  them  might  have  been  utilized  occasionally  as 
dance  songs ;  but  if  so,  this  was  not  typical,  and  it  was  not 
an  essential  of  their  composition. 

The  lowly,  as  over  against  the  aristocrats,  hardly  play 
any  part  in  the  English  and  Scottish  ballads;  and  the 
ballads  which  do  show  non-aristocratic  characters  are  those 
which  would  be  least  missed,  if  eliminated.  One  mentions 
a  hostler.  Thomas  Potts  is  a  serving-man,  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  ballad  of  that  name,  but  he  weds  a  lord's 
daughter,  and  is  himself  ennobled.  The  Kitchie  Boy,  who 
is  the  hero  of  another,  also  weds  a  lady  of  noble  birth,  in  a 
ballad  which  is  a  late  adaptation  of  King  Horn.  Lamkin 
in  the  ballad  of  that  name  is  a  mason.  Add  Kichie  Story, 
who  marries  a  footman,  although  herself  an  aristocrat,  and 
the  list  is  about  exhausted.  All  are  late  pieces.  The 

22  On  the  History  of  the  Ballads:  1100-1500,  Proceedings  of  the 
British  Academy,  vol.   IV. 


AUDIENCE  AND  AUTHORSHIP          101 

ballads,  in  due  time,  like  fiction  and  the  drama,  were  sub- 
jected to  democratization,  of  characters.  Later  British 
balladry  stays  no  longer  by  the  nobly-born  for  its  heroes 
and  heroines.  Among  mediaeval  types  of  literature  the 
ballad  of  the  Child  type  was  a  type  which  lasted  well,  but 
it  too  finally  yielded  to  later  melodies  and  styles,  with 
other  characters  and  plots.  The  personages  and  the  stories 
of  mediaeval  ballads  constitute  evidence  enough  that  the 
"  people  "  did  not  improvise  them,  for  the  songs  which  the 
people  do  improvise,  when  they  can  be  certainly  deter- 
mined, do  not  incline  to  be  narratives,  and  they  reflect  the 
immediate  horizons  of  their  makers  and  the  limitations  of 
their  expression.  Folk-throngs  cannot  produce  real  narra- 
tives, even  today,  nor  do  primitive  throngs.  There  is  no 
instance  recorded  where  a  collaborating  folk-throng  or  a 
primitive  throng,  for  that  matter,  has  produced  a  memor- 
able song-story.  Crude  songs,  at  most  pieces  of  tales 
rather  than  tales,  are  the  best  they  can  create.  The  power 
to  convey  a  complete  story  comes  late,  not  at  the  beginning 
of  lyric  art. 

The  English  and  Scottish  ballads  are  not  so  wholly 
impersonal  as  one  is  often  assured.  The  ballad  "  I  "  may 
not  often  refer  to  the  individuality  of  the  author,  but  the 
"  I "  of  the  singer  or  reciter  is  frequently  present.  That 
the  majority  of  the  ballads  should  be  impersonal,  however, 
is  normal  enough,  when  one  considers  the  purpose  for 
which  they  were  created  and  the  occasions  of  their  delivery. 
In  such  poetry  everywhere,  the  singer  avoids  asserting  his 
own  peculiarities  and  tastes.  The  epic  narratives  of  the 
Old  English  scapas  were  not  personal.  Sir  Walter  Scott's 
folk-lyrics,  tribal,  marching,  and  elegiac,  are  not  the  work 
of  a  clan,  though  they  sound  like  it,  nor  are  Kipling's  Bar- 


102       BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITERATE 

rack  Room  Ballads,  nor  our  national  songs,  though  they  ex- 
hibit their  authors  no  more  than  do  the  ballads.  Why 
should  The  Battle  of  Otterboume  or  The  Wife  of  Usher  s 
Well  or  Sir  Patrick  Spens  show  subjective  qualities  or  pa- 
rade their  composers  ?  "  Nine-tenths  of  secular  music  and 
literature,"  says  E.  K.  Chambers,  "  did  have  its  origin  in 
minstrelsy,"  23  and  the  ballads  are  hardly  likely  to  be  an 
exception.  There  are  references  enough  to  minstrelsy  in 
the  pieces  themselves.  The  harper  and  the  minstrel  appear 
in  many  ballads,  while  the  rustics  and  villagers  and  unlet- 
tered, from  whom  we  are  supposed  to  derive  them,  appear 
not  at  all. 

A  look  at  some  of  the  introductory  stanzas  of  the  ballads 
points  to  progress  toward,  not  away  from,  democracy,  and 
the  stages  of  progress  are  quite  parallel  to  those  of  litera- 
ture proper.  How  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth-century 
"  rimes  "  of  Robin  Hood  opened,  we  do  not  know,  though 
we  can  guess.  A  fairly  old  opening  is  this,  of  Robin  Hood 
and  the  Shepherd :  24 


"  All  gentlemen  and  yeomen  good, 
I  wish  you  to  draw  near." 


A  stock  opening  of  popular  songs  in  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury addresses  "  gallants," — 

"  Come  all  you  brave  gallants  and  listen  awhile." 

The  stage  of  complete  democratization  is  reached  in  the 
English  and  Irish  "  Come-all-ye's,"  as  they  are  often  called, 
of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries. 

23  The  Medieval  Stage.     I,  iii  and  iv.     1903. 

2*  Introductions  of  this  type  seem  to  point  to  an  inferior  address- 
ing superiors  —  hence  to  minstrel  composition;  as  the  vaudeville 
conteur  today  addresses  "  ladies  and  gentlemen." 


AUDIENCE  AND  AUTHORSHIP          103 

To  return  from  the  matter  of  audience  to  the  matter  of 
authorship,  the  minstrel  theory  was  held  by  all  the  early 
critics,  those  nearest  to  the  time  when  ballads  were  at 
their  height,  and  when  their  history  was  fresher ;  and  few 
of  the  texts  are  older  than  the  seventeenth  or  last  part  of 
the  sixteenth  century.  The  reference  is  probably  to  broad- 
side writers  when  Nicholas  Howe  in  the  Prologue  to  Jane 
Shore,  1713,  wrote: 

"Let  no  nice  tastes  despise  the  hapless  dame 
Because  recording  ballads  chant  her  name. 
Those  venerable  ancient  song  enditers 
Soared  many  a  pitch  above  our  modern  writers." 

But  his  statement  concerning  the  superiority  of  the  earlier 
over  the  later  balladists  is  true  enough.  Allan  Ramsay, 
whose  Evergreen  has  been  a  source  of  many  "  genuine  " 
ballads,  uses  for  his  sub-title  "  Scots  poems  wrote  by  the 
ingenious  before  1600,"  implying  his  belief  in  individual 
authorship.  Percy  and  all  the  Scotch  ballad  collectors 
held  the  minstrel  theory.  Percy  had  to  subject  some  of 
his  earlier  views  to  revision,  after  the  criticisms  of  Ritson ; 
the  position  between  Percy's  and  Ritson's  is  the  right  one, 
says  E.  K.  Chambers,  when  writing  of  the  minstrel.  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  a  pretty  good  antiquary,  and  nearer  to  sources 
of  supply,  in  time  and  place,  than  our  modern  theorists, 
believed  in  minstrel  authorship.  Even  Professor  Child 
felt  that  "  the  ballad  is  not  originally  the  product  or  the 
property  of  the  common  order  of  people."  He  states  that 
the  ballad  is  "  at  its  best  when  it  is  early  caught  and  fixed 
in  print."  He  has  nothing  to  say  of  the  origin  of  ballads 
in  dances  or  festal  throngs,  and  he  does  not  "  rule  the 
minstrel  out  of  court  "  but  allows  the  inference  that  ballads 


104       BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITERATE 

were  the  work  of  a  fraternity  whose  business  it  was  to  pro- 
vide tales  and  songs  for  the  amusement  of  all  ranks  of 
society.25  He  refers  often  to  the  minstrel.  The  character 
and  the  standing  of  minstrels  changed  after  the  introduc- 
tion of  printing  and  the  disappearance  of  mediaeval  condi- 
tions. The  mediaeval  form  of  minstrelsy  broke  up  in  the 
fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  In  general,  there  were 
many  types  of  minstrels,  higher  and  lower.  Some  recited 
the  poetry  of  others,  but  they  themselves  composed  pieces 
of  many  kinds.  There  were  many  types  of  occasions  at 
which  they  sang,  many  types  of  audiences,  and  many 
themes.  The  evidence,  so  final  to  Professor  Kittredge, 
of  26  what  they  were  like  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries,  when  they  were  in  their  decay,  no  more  shows 
what  any  one  class  of  them  produced  earlier,  than  the  stand- 
ing of  dramatists  in  the  seventeenth  century  shows  what 
their  standing  was  in  the  sixteenth;  or  than  seventeenth- 
century  songs  in  general  or  fiction  or  drama  show  the  char- 
acter and  quality  of  mediaeval  song  or  fiction  or  drama. 
Grant  that  minstrels  were  the  authors  of  any  proportion  of 
the  ballads  admitted  by  Professor  Child  into  his  collection, 
and  it  is  an  admission  that  there  is  no  fundamental  distinc- 
tion plainly  differentiating  the  "  true  "  ballad,  in  origin 
and  style,  from  other  types  of  ballads  and  songs.  As  we 
have  them,  the  ballads  had  many  origins,  aijd  they  show  in 
subject-matter  affiliations  with  many  varieties  of  oral 
recital  or  songs  adapted  for  popular  entertainment. 

One  important  distinction  must  be  borne  in  mind,  how- 

25  W.  M.  Hart,  Professor  Child  and  the  Ballad,  Publications  of 
the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America,  vol.  xxi.,  1906,  pp.  757, 
764,  etc. 

z«  Introduction  to  English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads,  p.  xxiii. 


AUDIENCE  ASTD  AUTHOKSHIP          105 

ever ;  and  it  is  hard  to  see  why  it  has  not  been  pointed  out 
many  times  by  students  of  folk-song,  to  the  clearing-up  of 
much  confusion.  The  songs  which  impress  the  folk  and 
find  vitality  among  them  are  not  the  uninteresting  and 
nearly  negligible  kind  of  thing  which  they  are  able  to 
produce  themselves.  Popular  poetry  likes  to  remember  the 
extraordinary,  not  the  near  at  hand  —  though  it  may  make 
over  the  remote  till  it  seems  near  at  hand  —  and  the 
unusual  not  the  usual  person.27  It  keeps  alive  songs  of 
Robin  Hood,  of  the  Percy  and  the  Douglas,  of  Captain 
Kidd,  of  Jesse  James,  John  Brown,  or  Casey  Jones.  It 
likes  the  strange,  the  sensational,  the  tragic,  or  at  the  other 
extreme,  the  comic ;  and  it  keeps  alive  the  striking  melody 
or  the  memorable  refrain  though  it  cannot  itself  produce 
these.  In  the  nineteenth  century,  when  popular  fiction 
makers  sought  to  provide  a  special  kind  of  folk  reading, 
such,  for  example,  as  The  Fireside  Companion  furnished, 
they  chose  nobles  and  millionaires  for  their  heroes,  and 
made  them  live  melodrama.  They  did  not  garb  them  in 
ordinary  clothes  but  in  silks  and  satins  and  velvets,  and 
gave  them  the  most  thrilling  adventures-  they  could  create. 

27  Compare  Jeanroy,  Origimes  de  la  Po6sie  Lyrique  en  France  au 
Moyen  Age,  p.  18.  "  Si  nous  poss£dions  encore  les  chansons  que 
chantaient  les  bergers  du  moyen  age,  il  est  certain  a  priori  que  ce 
ne  serait  pas  la  vie  pastorale  qui  y  serait  dgcrite.  Ce  serait  le 
seul  exemple  d'une  po4sie  populaire  peignant  de  parti  pris  les 
moeurs  populaires.  Le  peuple  au  contraire  a  une  preference  mar- 
qu£es  pour  les  evenements  extraordinaires  et  les  personnages  de 
haut  rang  qui  l'6loignent  de  sa  vie  de  tous  les  jours." 

It  may  be,  however,  that  since  all  literature  was  aristocratic, 
not  democratic,  till  the  eighteenth  century,  nothing  different  should 
be  expected,  whether  in  folk-tales  or  in  folk-poetry,  until  compara- 
tively late.  Popular  songs  having  lower-class  characters,  the 
"  vulgar  ballads "  of  the  collectors,  appear  in  balladry  when  such 
characters  begin  to  do  so  in  fiction  and  in  the  drama. 


106       BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITEKATE 

But  this  was  literature  "  for "  not  "  by "  the  people. 
Their  readers  might  not  have  cared  for  tales  of  common- 
place people  like  themselves.  As  for  the  stories  the  people 
might  themselves  invent,  these  would  stand  no  chance  of 
popularity  beside  the  stories  provided  for  them  and  read 
with  zest  by  them.  If  examples  are  needed,  contrast  the 
quality  of  My  Little  Old  Sod  Shanty,  which  Texas  cowboys 
preserved  but  did  not  create,28  with  the  Old  Chisholm 
Trail,  which  they  did  create;  or  the  negroes',  The  Boll 
Weevil,  which  emanated  from  them,  with  Old  Black  Joe, 
which  they  assimilated  but  did  not  compose;  or  the  prob- 
able text  of  Pastor  Lyngbye's  improvisation  of  the  Faroe 
fishermen  concerning  one  of  their  number,  with  the 
"  stately  songs  of  Sigurd  "  which  they  inherited.  To  re- 
iterate, for  emphasis;  what  constitutes  a  people's  popular 
song,  the  kind  of  thing  which  the  people  preserve,  and  the 
kind  of  thing  which  they  are  themselves  able  to  create, 
are  very  different  matters. 

Let  us  now  inquire  as  to  the  gulf  between  ballads  and 
real  literature. 

IH. THE    BALLADS    AND    LJTEBATTJBE 

Many  writers  are  impressed  by  the  simplicity  of  the 
ballad  language  and  by  the  want  of  conscious  art  'which  the 

28  Purely  local  ballads  are  based  upon  some  popular  model,  as 
The  Assassination  of  J.  B.  Marcum,  upon  Jesse  James,  or  Jack 
Combs  upon  The  Dying  Cowboy  (W.  Aspinwall  Bradley,  Song-Ballets 
and  Devil's  Ditties,  Harper's  Monthly  Magazine,  130,  901-914, 
1915),  or  the  Nebraska  improvisation,  Joe  Stecher,  on  /  Didn't 
Raise  My  Boy  to  be  a  Soldier,  see  p.  228.  One  heard  during  the 
European  war  many  "  communal  improvisations "  from  groups  of 
singing  soldiers,  such  as  "  We'll  hang  Kaiser  Bill  to  a  sour  apple 
tree,"  and  "  We'll  send  submarines  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea,"  heard 
by  the  present  writer,  both  modified  from  John  Brown. 


THE  BALLADS  AND  LITERATURE       107 

ballads  exhibit.  "  The  ballad-language,"  says  F.  Sidg- 
wick,  "  is  common  popular  stock ;  the  folk  will  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  phraseology  of  artists."  29  "  The  language 
holds  close  to  the  everyday  speech  of  the  people  who  sang 
the  ballads,"  says  Professor  Stempel.30  Professor  Gum- 
mere  speaks  of  "  Such  homely  traditional  songs  as  the 
people  sang  at  their  village  dances  and  over  their  daily 
round  of  toil,"  and  of  "  the  unlettered  and  artless  sim- 
plicity which  marks  genuine  ballads  of  tradition." 31 
'  'The  ballads,"  said  Professor  Kittredge,  "  belong  to  the 
folk ;  they  are  not  the  work  of  a  limited  professional  class, 
whether  of  high  or  low  degree."  32  Andrew  Lang  af- 
firmed that  "  The  whole  soul  of  the  peasant  class  breathes 
from  their  burdens."  33  Such  quotations  might  be  multi- 
plied. The  same  note  is  struck  in  many  literary  histories. 
Simplicity  of  expression  and  absence  of  artistry  are  to 
be  expected  of  songs  emerging  from  and  preserved  by  the 
common  people. 

The  crudity,  or  unliterary  quality,  of  the  Child  pieces 
has  been  much  exaggerated ;  or  so  it  seems  to  one  who  has 
before  him  living  work  unmistakably  of  folk-composition 
or  adaptation.  The  English  and  Scottish  ballads  preserve 
many  characteristics'  pointing  to  a  high  descent,  instead  of 
to  a  humble  origin  and  gradual  improvement.  The  evi- 
dence is  that  their  technique  suffered  gradual  deteriora- 
tion, rather  than  the  contrary.  The  earlier  text  of  The 
Hunting  of  the  Cheviot  is  superior  to  the  later;  and  so 
are  the  earlier  Robin  Hood  ballads  better  than  the  later. 

2»  The  Ballad,  p.  61. 

so  A  Book  of  Ballads  (1917),  p.  xxxiii. 

si  The  Popular  Ballad   (1907),  pp.  7,  8. 

32  English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads,  Introd.,  p.  xxiii. 

33  Article  "  Ballads  "   in  Encyclopaedia  Britannica. 


108        BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITERATE 

The  fifteenth  century  text  of  Riddles  Wisely  Expounded, 
preserving  its  learned  heading  Inter  didbolus  et  mrgo,  is 
superior  in  technique  to  its  modern  descendants  and  af- 
filiations. Another  excellent  illustration  is  afforded  by 
The  Fair  Flower  of  Northumberland.  It  has  survived 
to  us  in  seven  versions  in  all ;  but  that  given  in  Deloney's 
The  Pleasant  History  of  John  Winchcomb  is  the  only  one 
that  is  early  and  it  is  also  unquestionably  the  best  version. 
To  particularize  in  a  few  points,  The  Hunting  of  the 
Cheviot  has  an  elaborate  system  of  alliteration,  a  mark  of 
art,  pointing  to  a  professional  poet,  not  to  folk  authorship. 

"Bowmen  bickered  upon  the  bent 
With  their  broad  arrows  clear." 

"  Hardier  men  both  of  hart  nor  hand 
Were  not  in   Christentie." 

"  Tivydale  may  carp  of  care, 
Northomberlond  may  mayke  great  mon." 

In  the  later  text  this  has  disappeared.  And  in  the  older 
pieces  there  are  many  echoes  of  the  special  vocabulary  of 
the  fourteenth-  and  fifteenth-century  professional  poets, 
words  not  in  the  vocabulary,  says  Dr.  Bradley,34  of  every- 
day speakers. 

"  There  was  no  freke  that  ther  would  flye." 

Otterbourne,  58. 

"  A  bolder  barn  was  never  born." 

Hunting  of  the  Cheviot,  14. 

The  favorite  ballad  term  byrd  or  burd,  for  girl  or  woman, 
is  another  word  which  belonged  to  the  professional  poetic 

34  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature,  i.,  chap.  xix. 


THE  BALLADS  AND  LITERATURE       109 

vocabulary  of  Middle  English,  not  to  daily  life.  The 
stock  alliterative  epithets,  "  brown  brand,"  "  merry  men," 
"  doughty  Douglas,"  "  bold  baron,"  "  proud  porter,"  "  wan 
water,"  remind  one  of  the  "  kennings,"  so.  helpful  to  the 
technique  and  to  the  memory  of  the  Old  English  scop; 
also  of  the  alliterative  formulas  of  Langland  and  of  the 
circumlocutory  phrases  of  the  poets  of  the  age  of  Pope. 
The  ballads  preserve  many  archaic  literary  traits  along 
with  the  emotions  and  culture  of  a  vanished  age.  There 
are  no  set  alliterative  epithets  or  legacy-formulas  or  man- 
nerisms of  older  aristocratic  life  in  the  improvisations  of 
fishermen,  cowboys,  ranch  hands,  and  negroes,  genuinely 
communal  and  homogeneous  as  are  the  conditions  under 
which  they  live. 

Mrs.  Brown  of  Falkland's  texts  contain  literary  words 
like  paramour,  a  rhyme-word  in  her  texts,  dolour,  travail. 
Paynim  appears  in  King  Estmere  —  and  sounds  like 
Percy's  word.  Adieu,  hardly  a  folk-word,  appears  in 
Andrew  Lammie,  The  Gardener,  and  other  pieces;  and 
Robin  Hood  and  the  Ranger  actually  begins  with  a  refer- 
ence to  Phoebus.  The  first  line  of  Robin,  and  Gandeleyn, 
the  text  of  which  is  one  of  the  earliest  ballad  texts  remain- 
ing, reads,  "  I  heard  the  carpyng  of  a  clerk."  Traces  of 
the  retention  of  French  accent,  the  language  of  the  upper 
classes  and  the  court,  appear  in  words  like  pite,  forest, 
menye,  certdyne,  chamber,  contre&,  and  there  is  frequent 
transference  of  it  to  native  words  like  lady,  water,  thous- 
and, having  properly  initial  accent,  or  to  names  like 
Douglas,  London.3*  To  cite  a  few  more  points  of  style, 

ss  Some  prosodists  might  hold  that  these  "  wrenched  accents " 
are  only  instanees  of  "  pitch  accent "  and  derive  them  from  Old 
English.  Others  may  feel  that  they  are  merely  crudenesses  made 


110       BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITERATE 

the  premonitory  dream  (of  a  gryphon)  is  used  in  Sir 
Aldingar,  in  the  way  so  characteristic  of  Old  French  and 
Middle  English  literature;  frequent  for  instance  in 
Chaucer  and  Langland ;  and  many  other  mediaeval  literary 
conventions  are  reflected.  There  are  chanson  d'aventure 
openings,  as  in  Robin  and  Gandeleyn,  and  reverdi  openings, 
as  in  many  of  the  Robin  Hood  ballads.  The  satirical 
legacy,  that  favorite  device  of  the  hallads,  had  great  popu- 
larity as  a  literary  convention  in  the  fourteenth  and  fif- 
teenth centuries.36  The  English  and  Scottish  ballads 
shade  off  into  literary  and  other  verse  of  many  types: 
The  Rose  of  England  into  allegory,  The  Geste  of  Robin 
Hood  into  the  epic  chanson,  Sir  Aldingar  into  romance, 
The  Battle  of  Otterboume  into  verse  chronicle.  Many, 
like  the  riddle  ballads,  show  affiliations  with  the  debate 
or  dialogue  verse,  the  estrifs  and  verse  contests  of  mediaeval 
literature.  The  Gray  Cock  is  an  aube,  Barbara  Aliens 
Cruelty  is  nearly  a  pure  lyric,  Johnny  Campbell  is  a 
coronach  or  lament  for  the  dead,  The  Holy  Well  and 
The  Bitter  Withy  are  carols,  and  The  Carnal  and  the 
Crane  is  a  theological  discussion  in  verse.  It  would  be 
futile  perhaps  to  look  for  some  wholly  unique  ballad  arche- 
type, differing  absolutely  from  other  forms  of  verse  to 
be  recited  or  sung ;  or  to  insist  upon  emergence  of  "  gen- 
uine "  ballads  from  a  single  source,  whether  villagers, 
improvisers  at  folk-dances,  some  specific  class  of  bards  or 
minstrels,  or  from  the  singers  of  the  church. 

The  ballads  show  strophe  forms  and  basic  meters  of  the 

possible  by  the  fact  that  the  ballads  were  sung  not  read.  But  the 
final  accent  is  too  clearly  marked,  and  is  used  too  definitely  and 
too  frequently,  at  least  in  the  earlier  pieces,  to  be  explained  as 
something  merely  casual  and  fortuitous. 

so  See  E.  C.  Perrow,  The  Last  Witt  and  Testament  in  Literature. 


THE  BALLADS  AND  LITERATURE       111 

types  arising,  it  is  usually  thought,  from  the  music  ana 
hymns  and  chorals  of  the  mediaeval  church ;  and  that  such 
should  be  the  case  seems  natural  enough.  The  contrary 
process,  that  the  people  themselves  should  create  a  regular 
strophe,  or  regular  strophes,  with  consistent  meter,  is  not 
borne  out  by  evidence  or  by  analogy.  Poetry  of  genuine 
popular  creation  does  not  know  what  meter  is,  save  as  it 
appropriates  it  —  at  that  partially  and  inconsistently  — 
from  some  model.  Similarly  the  refrain  when  it  is  pres- 
ent —  which  is  in  about  a  fourth  of  the  ballads  —  is  used 
in  the  literary  or  art  way,  the  way  of  the  sophisticated. 
It  does  not  resemble  the  crude  repetitions  of  genuine  pop- 
ular creations.  It  is  used  as  it  is  is  in  the  ballade,  the 
roundel,  or  the  mediaeval  religious  songs  of  many 
types,  that  is,  in  a  way  that  is  consistent  and  symmet- 
rical. 

Last,  let  us  look  at  two  ballads  which  have  been  accepted 
as  pre-eminently  characteristic,  and  see  where  they  stand 
as  regards  "  art."  Edward  has  been  called  "  unimpeach- 
able "  by  Professor  Child,  "  one  of  the  most  sterling  of 
the  popular  ballads."  It  is  thought  by  Professor  W.  M. 
Hart  to  show,  not  conscious  art  at  all,  but  rather  the 
simplest  and  earliest  stage  of  ballad  development  which  the 
Child  pieces  have  preserved  to  us.37  It  is  too  familiar  to 
need  quotation  in  full.  A  few  stanzas  from  the  begin- 
ning and  the  close  will  serve  to  recall  it. 

Transactions  of  the  Wisconsin  Academy  of  Arts  and  Science.     Vol. 
xvii. 

87  A  favorite  line  of  evolution  with  Professor  Hart  is  from  the 
simplicity  and  brevity  of  Edward  to  the  epic  complexity  of  the  Oeste 
of  Robin  Hood.  Yet  within  the  Robin  Hood  ballads  themselves  may 
be  observed  a  line  of  decay,  from  the  early  Oeste  to  the  brevity  and 
inferiority  of  the  later  pieces. 


112 

" '  Why  dois  your  brand  sae  drap  wi  bluid, 

Edward,  Edward, 
Why  dois  your  brand  sae  drap  wi  bluid, 

And  why  sae  sad  gang  yee  O  ? ' 

'  0  I  hae  killed  my  hauke  sae  guid, 

Mither,  mither, 

0  I  hae  killed  my  hauke  sae  guid, 
And  I  had  nae  mair  bot  hee  0.' 

" '  Your  haukis  bluid  was  nevir  sae  reid, 

Edward,  Edward, 
Your  haukis  bluid  was  nevir  sae  reid, 

My  deir  son  I  tell  thee  0.' 
'  0  I  hae  killed  my  red-roan  steid, 
Mither,  mither, 
0  I  hae  killed  my  reid-roan  steid, 

That  erst  was  sae  fair  and  frie  0.  .  .  .' 

"'And  what  wul  ye  leive  to  your  ain  mither  deir, 

Edward,  Edward, 
And  what  wul  ye  leive  to  your  ain  mither  deir? 

My  deir  son,  now  tell  me  0  ? ' 
*  The  curse  of  hell  frae  me  sail  ye  beir, 

Mither,  mither, 

The  curse  of  hell  frae  me  sail  ye  beir, 
Sic  counseils  ye  gave  to  me  0.' " 

We  may  postpone,  as  yet,  generalization  concerning  this 
ballad,  noting  only  its  striking  parallelism  in  structure,  a 
parellelism  carried  out  to  a  degree  that  brings  us  face  to 
face  with  art.  Repetition  often  aids  in  the  avoidance 
of  heavy  or  involved  construction  in  ballad  technique,  and 
nowhere  more  than  here. 

The  second  ballad  is  the  American  text  of  The  Hang- 
man's Tree,  of  the  composition  of  which  Professor  Kit- 
tredge  draws  a  sketch,  .when  sung  for  the  first  time  by  its 


THE  BALLADS  AND  LITERATURE       113 

"  improvising  author.  The  audience  are  silent  for  the 
first  two  stanzas,  and  until  after  the  first  line  of  the  third 
has  been  finished.  After  that  they  join  in  the  song." 
This,  many  think,  is  the  characteristic  method  of  ballad 
authorship  —  improvisation  in  the  presence  of  a  sympa- 
thetic company,  which  may  even  participate  in  the  process. 
When  "  the  song  has  ended,  the  creative  act  of  composi- 
tion is  finished."  The  author  is  "  lost  in  the  throng." 
Parenthetically,  one  would  like  to  inquire  what  was  the 
part  played  by  the  festal  dance,  insisted  upon  by  one 
author,38  in  the  making  of  this  genuine  ballad. 
The  text  is  short  enough  to  be  quoted  in  full : 

" '  Hangman,  hangman,  howd  yo  hand, 

0  howd  it  wide  and  far! 

For  theer  I  see  my  feyther  coomin, 
Riding  through  the  air. 

"'Feyther,  feyther,  ha  you  brot  me  goold? 

Ha  yo  paid  my  fee? 
Or  ha  yo  coom  to  see  me  hung, 
Beneath  tha  hangman's  tree?' 

"'I  ha  naw  brot  yo  goold, 

1  ha  naw  paid  yo  fee, 

But  I  ha  coom  to  see  yo  hung 
Beneath  the  hangman's  tree.' 

"  '  Hangman,  hangman,  howd  yo  hand, 

0  howd  it  wide  and  far! 
For  theer  I  see  my  meyther  coomin, 
Riding  through  the  air. 

ssQummere,  The  Popular  Ballad,  p.  117;  The  Cambridge  History 
of  English  Literature,  vol.  II,  p.  460. 


114       BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITEEATE 

"'Meyther,  meyther,  ha  yo  brot  me  goold? 

Ha  yo  paid  my  fee? 
Or  ha  yo  coom  to  see  me  hung, 
Beneath  tha  hangman's  tree?' 

" '  I  ha  naw  brot  yo  goold, 

I  ha  naw  paid  yo  fee, 
But  I  ha  coom  to  see  yo  hung 
Beneath  tha  hangman's  tree.' 

" '  Hangman,  hangman,  howd  yo  hand, 

0  howd  it  wide  and  far! 

For  theer  I  see  my  sister  coomin, 
Riding  through  the  air. 

" '  Sister,  sister,  ha  yo  brot  me  goold  ? 

Ha  yo  paid  my  fee? 
Or  ha  ye  coom  to  see  me  hung, 
Beneath  the  hangman's  tree  ? ' 

"  '  I  ha  naw  brot  yo  goold, 

1  ha  naw  paid  yo  fee, 
But  I  ha  coom  to  see  yo  hung 

Beneath  tha  hangman's  tree.' 

"  '  Hangman,  hangman,  howd  yo  hand, 

0  howd  it  wide  and  far! 
For  theer  I  see  my  sweetheart  coomin, 
Riding  through  the  air. 

"'Sweetheart,  sweetheart,  ha  yo  brot  me  goold? 

Ha  yo  paid  my  fee? 
Or  ha  yo  coom  to  see  me  hung, 
Beneath  tha  hangman's  tree?' 

" '  0  I  ha  brot  yo  goold, 

And  I  »ha  paid  yo  fee, 
And  I  ha  coom  to  take  yo  from 
Beneath  tha  hangman's  tree.'  " 


THE  BALLADS  AND  LITERATURE       115 

Is  not  this,  like  Edward,  perfect  art?  Neither  piece 
could  be  improved,  as  regards  cohesion,  cumulative  effect, 
economy  of  words,  use  of  suspense,  and  climax  —  all  of 
which  belong  to  art.  In  general,  it  is  students  of  folk- 
song who  have  given  their  time  to  backward  study,  not  to 
the  study  of  contemporary  folk-song  and  its  processes, 
who  are  able  to  maintain  so  high  an  opinion  of  the 
products  of  improvisation  and  of  the  creative  ability  of 
folk-groups ;  or  the  powers  of  the  unlettered.  Those  who 
have  dealt  much  with  living  popular  poetry  and  its  proc- 
esses are  less  sanguine.  Human  ways  and  powers  do  not 
change  very  much  in  matters  of  this  kind,  and  to  the 
student  of  living  folk-song,  the  assumption  of  the  creation, 
by  an  improvising  singer  and  villagers,  of  the  lyric  type 
of  which  these  pieces  present  one  of  the  "  simplest  stages," 
is  far  from  favored  by  the  evidence.  Especially,  the  brief, 
consistent  telling  of  a  story,  by  the  question  and  answer 
method,  is  of  late,  not  early  literary  development.  Gen- 
uine folk-creations  know  no  such  thing.  For  that  matter 
they  know  no  such  thing  as  the  brief  and  consistent  telling 
of  a  story.  There  is  abundant  living  evidence  that  folk- 
creation  does  not  incline  to  the  narrative  song,  but  merely 
to  the  song.  In  both  primitive  poetry  and  modern  com- 
munally improvised  popular  poetry,  finished  well-con- 
structed narrative  is  beyond  the  powers  of  the  creators  of 
whom  we  have  knowledge  or  evidence. 

Place  beside  Edward  or  The  Hangman's  Tree  a  folk- 
improvisation  by  the  cowboys, —  surely  not  inferiors  as 
poetic  creators  of  the  mediaeval  peasants  —  and  the  dis- 
crepancy in  favor  of  the  mediaeval  pieces  is  marked. 

Since  they  were  composed  for  oral  purposes,  for  the 
ear  not  for  the  eye,  nor  for  manuscript  preservation,  the 


116        BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITERATE 

wonder  should  be,  no  doubt,  that  the  English  and  Scottish 
ballads  exhibit  so  much  as  they  do  of  literary  quality  and 
skilful  technique.  Some  are  inferior  and  some  better; 
but  they  do  show  "  art,"  or  degrees  of  it ;  they  are  memor- 
able and  effective  for  the  oral  purposes  for  which  they 
were  intended.  In  form,  as  well  as  in  themes  and  char- 
acters, they  suggest  a  high  descent.  Contrast,  where  dates 
are  available,  early  pieces  with  late,  or  American  versions 
with  their  Old  World  parents,  and  make  inference  from  the 
mass.  The  crudity  and  the  unliterary  quality  increase 
with  the  lapse  of  time,  and  by  popular  preservation.  The 
epic  completeness  and  effectiveness  of  the  Child  pieces  is 
likely  to  sink  downward  to  simplicity  or  fragmentariness. 
Judging  from  the  mass  of  recorded  examples,  there  is  no 
testimony  in  existent  folk-song  that  the  process  was  an 
upward  process  from  popular  simplicity  and  brevity  to 
pieces  of  the  length  and  quality  of  the  Geste  of  Robin 
Hood.39 

The  distinction  between  poetry  of  art,  which  is  litera- 
ture, and  poetry  of  the  people,  which  is  not,  especially 

3»  Professor  Gummere's  latest  position  was  that  the  ballad  is  of 
communal  origin,  of  dance  origin,  but  grows  more  and  more  away 
from  the  dance-song  in  the  direction  of  the  epic.  "  Once  choral, 
dramatic,  with  insistent  refrain  and  constant  improvisation,  the 
ballad  came  to  be  a  convenient  form  for  narrative  of  every  sort 
which  drifted  down  the  ways  of  tradition  "  ( Cambridge  History  of 
English  Literature,  vol.  n,  p.  456).  A  song  humble  in  origins  may 
develop  beyond  its  crude  beginnings,  subjected  to  the  "  refining  and 
ennobling  processes  of  tradition,"  or  "  improved  by  some  vagrom 
bard"  (The  Popular  Ballad,  76-79,  250).  It  is  not  till  this  stage 
of  "  improvement "  has  been  reached  that  it  becomes,  in  our  sense,  a 
ballad.  Compare  Professor  Kittredge,  who  "  rules  the  minstrel  out 
of  court,"  and  maintains  that  he  could  never  have  created  the  bal- 
lads, but  that  genuine  ballad^  are  spoiled  when  they  pass  through 
his  hands. 


THE  BALLADS  AND  LITERATURE       117 

when  there  is  insistence  upon  manner  of  origin,  can  be 
held  much  too  rigidly  and  forced  too  far.  The  distinction 
takes  care  of  itself  if  we  think  only  of  the  destined 
audiences  of  the  two  types  of  poetry,  and  if  we  do  not 
insist  upon  some  mystical  special  manner  of  composition, 
under  choral  and  festal  conditions  now  obsolete.  When 
we  do  insist  upon  a  sharply  differentiated  origin  for 
"  genuine  "  pieces,  and  then  try  to  apply  such  distinction 
consistently  to  any  given  body  of  folk-song,  genuinely 
recovered  from  oral  tradition,  solid  ground  fails  us.  A 
definition  which  in  itself  denies  to  the  ballad  that  it  is 
a  form  of  literature,  denies  it  "  art,"  and  insists  that  it 
is  the  property  of  the  unlettered,  is  a  definition  that  is 
nearly  useless  for  purposes  of  application.  Fortunately, 
those  who  so  define  ballads  never  apply  their  definition  in 
practice;  just  as  they  never  in  application  restrict  what 
should  be  termed  ballads  to  songs  that  were  originally 
dance-songs.  If  they  applied  their  theories  rigorously 
and  consistently,  they  would  have  left  nearly  no  ballads  to 
which  to  apply  them.40 

It  is  enough  to  say  that  in  English  we  mean  by  a 
ballad  a  certain  type  of  lyrical  narrative  or  narrative 
song  or  song-tale,  which  appears  rather  late  in  literary 
history;  and  we  may  discard  as  unessential  for  defining 
this  type  references  to  the  origin  of  such  pieces  in  the 

40  Professor  Gummere  had  a  way  of  so  defining  his  subjects  that 
he  robbed  himself  of  most  of  the  material  which  he  proposed  to 
treat.  In  his  article  on  "  Folk-Song "  in  the  Warner  Library  of 
the  World's  Best  Literature,  when  he  finished  elucidating  what 
genuine  folk-song  is,  he  had  left  himself  no  valid  material  for  il- 
lustrating his  species.  He  had  to  follow  most  of  his  examples  by 
qualification  and  apology ;  "  few  of  the  above  specimens  [of  folk- 
song] can  lay  claim  to  the  title  in  any  rigid  classification." 


118        BALLADS  AND  THE  ILLITEKATE 

dance  —  an  origin  rather  more  characteristic  of  other 
mediaeval  lyric  types  than  it  is  of  the  English  and  Scottish 
song-tales  —  and  references  to  their  emergence  from  illit- 
erate throngs.  We  can  then  call  The  Wreck  of  the  Hes- 
perus 41  a  ballad,  as  well  as  Sir  Patrick  8 'pens;  we  can 
call  anonymous  song-tales  like  King  Estmere  and  Edward, 
which  never  had  any  connection  with  the  dance,  ballads; 
and  we  can  call  Professor  Child's  St.  Stephen  and  Herod, 
with  its  Cristus  natus  est  of  the  eleventh  line  intact,  or 
King  John  and  the  Bishop  of  Canterbury,  with  no  marks 
of  crudity  or  deterioration  upon  it,  ballads;  and  we  can 
do  so  with  no  less  right  than  if  they  had  been  popularly 
transmitted  and  transformed. 

Folk  re-creation  of  traditional  ballads,  of  both  melodies 
and  texts,  is  something  that  no  student  of  them  would  deny. 
It  is  not  the  same  thing  as  folk-origin  for  them,  though  the 
confusion  is  often  made.  Unlike  the  assumption  of  folk- 
creation,  it  necessitates  no  hypothesis  endowing  the  un- 
lettered with  the  power  to  create  verse  in  uniform  stanzas 
dignified  by  the  consistent  use  of  rhyme,  and  terse  and 
telling  and  memorable  in  expression;  no  insistence  upon 
origins  in  the  dance ;  no  insistence  upon  the  superiority  of 
the  creative  powers  of  the  throng  over  those  of  the  indi- 
vidual ;  and  no  faith  in  the  special  ability  of  the  ignorant 
and  the  illiterate  to  establish  a  lyric  type  impossible  for 
those  of  higher  place.  If  folk  re-creation,  not  folk-crea- 
tion, were  all  that  was  meant  when  the  "  communal " 
nature  of  popular  poetry,  as  over  against  "  art  "  poetry, 
is  under  discussion,  much  controversy  and  ambiguity  and 

*i  Before  it  can  be  called  a  popular  or  a  folk  or  traditional  ballad, 
sense  of  the  original  author,  or  of  personal  proprietorship  in  a  bal- 
lad must  be  lost. 


THE  BALLADS  AND  LITERATURE       119 

confusion  would  have  been  saved.  When  a  piece  has  been 
popularly  preserved  in  oral  tradition  and  transformed 
thereby,  the  product  is  truly  enough  the  work  of  and  the 
property  of  the  people ;  42  but  that  does  not  mean  that  the 
same  piece  might  not  have  been  a  ballad  before  the  illiterate 
ever  touched  it  in  a  modifying  way. 

*2  It  is  in  this  sense  that  Mr.  Cecil  Sharp  may  be  called  a  com- 
munalist;  indeed,  it  may  fairly  be  said  that  all  students  of  folk- 
song are,  in  this  sense,  communalists. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

The  style  of  the  English  and  Scottish  ballads  has  often 
received  treatment,  and  their  appeal  for  the  reader  who 
is  in  reaction  from  book  verse  has  been  stressed  by  critics 
of  many  types.  Certain  conspicuous  mannerisms  have 
had  attention  from  scholars  and  special  students  and  have 
been  utilized  for  special  pleading.  They  are  thought  to 
afford  ballad  differentiae  and  to  throw  light  upon  the 
origin  of  the  ballad  as  a  lyric  type.  That  traditional 
ballads  constitute  a  distinctive  species  is  held  to  be  due, 
on  the  evidence  of  stylistic  mannerisms,  not  to  their  oral 
or  sung  character  or  to  their  destination  as  popular  poetry, 
but  rather  to  their  origin  among  the  folk,  especially  among 
illiterate  folk. 

In  the  following  pages  no  attempt  will  be  made  to  repeat 
what  has  been  well  said  by  others  in  characterization  of  the 
ballad  style.  Various  features  of  it  will  be  examined 
which  have  been  brought  into  the  foreground  of  discussion 
because  they  seemed  pivotal.  Usually  the  style  of  the 
ballads  is  analyzed  without  much  reference  to  the  pieces 
which  exist  alongside  them  in  folk  tradition.  This  is 
partly  because  of  the  tendency  of  many  collectors  to  re- 
strict their  salvage  to  pieces  of  the  Child  type,  ignoring  or 
discarding  many  related  types  of  song  of  equal  or  greater 
currency  among  the  folk.  In  consequence  of  such 
specialization,  the  ballads  are  often  endowed  too  distinc- 

120 


INCREMENTAL  REPETITION  121 

tively  with  traits  which  they  share  with  other  folk-song. 
A  study  of  ballads,  whether  mediaeval  or  later,  which  does 
not  take  into  account  their  background,  tends  to  foster  too 
sharply  drawn  distinctions  or  too  rigid  generalizations, 
and  to  make  the  results  arrived  at  less  dependable. 

I INCREMENTAL    REPETITION    AND    OTHEK    BALLAD 

MANNERISMS 


Ttion,"  we  are  told,  "  is  the  chief  mark  of  the 
ballad  style;  and  the  favorite  form  of  this  effective  figure 
is  what  one  may  call  incremental  repetition.  The  ques- 
tion is  repeated  with  the  answer ;  each  increment  in  a  series 
of  related  facts  has  a  stanza  for  itself,  identical  save  for 
the  new  fact,  with  the  other  stanzas.  Babylon  furnishes 
good  instances  of  this  progressive  iteration."  l  And  again, 
"  Incremental  repetition  is  the  main  mark  of  the  old 
ballad  structure."  2  This  repetition  is  supposed  to  be 
bound  up  with  derivation  from  the  dance,  as  many  cita- 
tions will  show.  "  It  furnishes,"  we  are  told,  "  the  con- 
nection with  that  source  of  balladry  —  not  of  mended 
ballads  —  in  improvisation  and  communal  composition, 
with  the  singing  and  dancing  throng,  so  often  described 
by  mediaeval  writers."  References  are  many  to  "incre- 
mental repetition,  obviously  related  to  movements  of  the 
dance  " ;  3  or  we  are  assured  that  the  ballad  was  "  meant 
in  the  first  instance  for  singing  and  connected  as  its  name 
implies,  with  the  communal  dance."  By  incremental  rep- 

i  F.  J.  Gummere,  "  Ballads "  in  A  Library  of  the  World's  Best 
Literature,  vol.  in,  p.  1308.  See  also  The  Popular  Ballad,  pp.  117- 
134. 

2 "  Ballads "  in  The  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature, 
vol.  IT,  pp.  449,  459. 

3  Democracy  and  Poetry,  p.  188. 


122  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

etition  is  meant  the  ballad  repetition  not  in  the  refrain 
way  but  structurally  or  for  emphasis  by  which  successive 
stanzas  reveal  a  situation  or  advance  the  interest  by 
successive  changes  of  a  single  phrase  or  line.  A  stanza 
repeats  a  preceding  one  with  variation  but  adds  something 
to  advance  the  story.  Lyrical  repetition  of  this  type  is  a 
marked  characteristic  of  the  Child  pieces,  a  large  propor- 
tion having  this  structural  feature.  It  is  upon  this  char- 
acteristic that  many  scholars  rest  their  belief  that  the  very 
structure  of  the  ballad,  the  type  itself,  rests  chiefly  on  the 
dance,  the  communal  dance  of  primitive  or  of  peasant 
throngs.  The  four  examples  best  illustrating  it,  those 
usually  cited,  are  Lord  Randal,  first  heard  of  in  the  reper- 
tory of  a  seventeenth-century  Italian  singer  at  Verona 
named  Camillo ;  4  Edward,  a  ballad  in  literary  Scotch, 
first  known  from  the  Percy  manuscript;  The  Maid  Freed 
from  the  Gallows,  a  ballad  told  with  perfect  symmetry  by 
the  question  and  answer  method  in  a  version  recovered  in 
America  in  the  nineteenth  century;  and  Babylon,  the 
earliest  text  of  which  comes  from  Motherwell's  Min- 
strelsy, published  in  1827. 

As  often  pointed  out,  the  date  of  recovery  of-  a  ballad 
is  no  sure  indication  of  the  antiquity  of  a  ballad,  or  the 
lack  of  it;  but  it  should  not  be  left  out  of  account  when 
other  evidence  fails.  The  chronology  of  the  English  and 
Scottish  ballads  lends  no  support  to  the  belief  that  incre- 
mental repetition  was  a  characteristic  of  archetypal  ballads 
or  that  it  points  to  their  emergence  from  the  dance.  If  the 

*  Countess  Martinengo-Cesaresco,  Essays  on  the  Study  of  Folk- 
Song  (1886).  "Lord  Ronald  in  Italy,"  p.  214.  The  Delia  Cruscans 
thought  of  "improving"  this  song.  The  poisoning  feature  of  the 
plot  is  more  characteristic  of  Italian  than  of  English  story. 


INCREMENTAL  REPETITION  123 

repetitional  type  is  that  having  greatest  antiquity,  repe- 
tition should  appear  characteristically  in  the  earliest  bal- 
lads, less  often  in  the  late  —  those  which  were  composed 
after  the  dance  origin  so  often  assumed  ceased  to  condi- 
tion the  structure.  Yet  incremental  repetition  does  not 
appear  in  our  oldest  ballad  text,  the  thirteenth-century 
Judas,  nor  is  it  a  normal  feature  of  those  early  ballad 
types,  the  outlaw  and  chronicle  ballads.5  Unfortunately 
for  the  theorists  who  hold  it  to  be  fundamental,  it  appears 
most  frequently  in  later  texts,  not  earlier,  and  more  often 
in  the  broadsides  than  in  oral  versions.  It  does  not  appear 
in  the  fifteenth-century  Inter  Diabolus  et  Virgo,  the  direct 
ancestor  of  Riddles  Wisely  Expounded,  in  the  texts  of 
which  it  does  appear ;  so  that  Professor  F.  E.  Bryant  re- 
marked, much  puzzled,  "  it  is  a  clear  case  of  an  early  ver- 
sion not  being  nearly  so  ballad-like  as  a  whole  group  of 
later  ones."  6  Says  Mr.  John  Robert  Moore,  "  Unfortu- 
nately .  .  .  the  facts  seem  to  make  little  provision  for 
the  theory  [i.  e.  of  incremental  repetition  as  fundamental 
to  the  ballad  structure]  ;  for  it  is  the  simple  ballads  which 
most  often  have  fixed  refrains,  and  the  broadsides  which 
exhibit  the  most  marked  use  of  incremental  repetition. 
Furthermore,  when  oral  tradition  adds  a  refrain  to  an  or- 
iginal printed  broadside,  it  is  only  a  simple  refrain  with- 
out the  structural  device  of  accretion  which  Professor 
Gummere  considers  so  characteristic." 7  Professor  H. 
M.  Belden  has  pointed  out  that  the  output  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  ballad  press,  accessible  in  the  British 

5  There  is  something  like  it  in  Robin  and  Gandeleyn  and  in  the 
learned  or  at  least  sophisticated  St.  Stephen  and  Herod. 

«A  History  of  English  Balladry,  1913. 

i  The  Influence  of  Transmission  on  the  English  Ballads,  Modern 
Language  Review,  vol.  XI  (1916),  p.  398. 


124  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

Museum,  shows  this  structural  characteristic  very  mark- 
edly.8 It  has  been  shown  by  Mr.  Phillips  Barry  that 
iteration  is  a  mark  of  the  late  not  the  earlier  versions 
of  Young  Charlotte,  whose  history  he  has  traced  backward 
nearly  a  hundred  years.9  Iteration  can  be  developed,  he 
shows,  as  an  effect  of  continuous  folk-singing. 

Structural  repetition  is  not  a  certain  test  of  what  is  and 
what  is  not  a  ballad  and  it  is  not  to  be  insisted  upon  in 
definition  of  the  type,  first  because  it  is  not  always  pres- 
ent in  ballads,  and  second,  because  it  is  as  characteristic 
of  other  folk  lyrics  as  it  is  of  ballads.  Just  as  a  ballad 
can  be  a  ballad  without  the  presence  of  choral  repetition 
or  a  refrain,  so  it  can  be  a  ballad  without  showing  incre- 
mental repetition.  The.  only  dependable  test  elements  in 
ballads  are  lyrical  quality  and  a  story  element,  and,  for 
traditional  folk-ballads,  anonymity  of  authorship. 

An  excellent  example  of  structural  repetition  in  medi- 
aeval song  other  than  ballads  is  afforded  by  the  following 
satire  against  women : — 10 

Herfor  &  therfor  &  therfor  I  came, 
And  for  to  praysse  this  praty  woman. 

Ther  wer  in  wylly,  3  wyly  ther  wer, — 
A  fox,  a  fryyr,  and  a  woman. 

Ther  wer  3  angry,  3  angry  ther  wer,- — 
A  wasp,  a  wesyll,  &  a  woman. 

8  Review  of  Gummere's  The  Popular  BalTad,  Journal  of  English 
and  Germanic  Philology,  vol.  vra,  p.  114. 

» William  Carter,  The  Bensontown  Homer,  Journal  of  American 
Folk-Lore,  vol.  xxv,  pp.  156-158. 

10  Bodleian  MS.  Eng.  Poet.  E.  1.  f.  13.  Percy  Society,  vol. 
LXXIII,  p.  4. 


INCREMENTAL  REPETITION  125 

Ther  wer  3  cheteryng,  in  cheteryng  ther  wer, — 
A  peye,  a  jaye,  &  a  woman. 

Ther  wer  3  wold  be  betyn,  3  wold  be  betyn  ther  wer, — 
A  myll,  a  stoke  f ysche,  and  a  woman. 

Or  by  a  song  on  a  fox  and  geese,  which  opens — n 

The  fals  fox  camme  unto  oure  croft, 
And  so  our  gese  full  fast  he  sought ; 
With  how,  fox,  how,  etc. 

The  fals  fox  camme  unto  oure  stye, 
And  toke  our  gese  there  by  and  by. 

The  fals  fox  camme  into  oure  yerde, 
And  there  he  made  the  gese  aferd. 

The  fals  fox  camme  unto  oure  gate, 
And  toke  oure  gese  there  where  they  sate. 

The  fals  fox  camme  to  oure  halle  dore, 
And  shrove  oure  gese  there  in  the  flore,  etc. 

Or  by  this  lively  pastoral,   which  might  possibly  be  a 
dance  song,  but  which  is  not  a  ballad.12 

I  haue  xu  oxen  that  be  fayre  &  brown, 

&  they  go  a  grasynge  down  by  the  town; 

With  hay,  with  howe,  with  hay! 

Sawyste  thow  not  myn  oxen,  you  litell  prety  boyf 

I  haue  xu  oxen  &  they  be  ffayre  and  whight, 
&  they  go  a  grasyng  down  by  the  dike; 

«  Cambridge  University  Library,  M.  S.  Ee,  1,  12.  There  are  18 
stanzas. 

12  MS.  Balliol  354.  Flfigel,  Anglia,  vol.  xxvi,  p.  197.  Ed.  Dy- 
boski,  E.  E.  T.  S.,  Extra  Series,  101  (1907),  p.  104. 


126  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

With  hay,  with  howe,  with  hay! 

Sawyste  not  you  myn  oxen,  you  lytyll  prety  boyf 

I  haue  xii  oxen  &  they  be  fayre  and  blak, 

And  they  go  a  grasyng  down  by  the  lak; 

With  hay,  with  howe,  with  hay! 

Sawyste  not  you  myn  oxen,  you  lytell  prety  boy? 

I  haue  xii  oxen,  and  they  be  fayre  and  rede, 

&  they  go  a  grasyng  down  by  the  mede; 

With  hay,  with  howe,  with  hay ! 

Sawyste  not  you  myn  oxen,  you  lytyll  prety  boy? 

Or  by  the  Song  of  the  Incarnation  of  about  1400,  which  is 
quoted  in  full  elsewhere.13 

Repetition  and  parallelism  are  also  characteristic  of  that 
popular  type  of  mediaeval  song  the  religious  carol,  like  the 
well-known  Cherry  Tree  Carol,  classed  by  Professor  Child, 
because  of  its  narrative  element  and  its  currency  in  oral 
tradition,  as  a  ballad.  Other  carols  in  ballad  stave  and 
showing  very  close  relation  to  ballads  —  they  have  both 
structural  repetition  and  a  narrative  element  —  are  The 
Holy  Well,  telling  of  the  childhood  of  Jesus,  and  The 
Bitter  Withy,  closely  related  to  the  preceding,  perhaps  as 
much  ballad  as  carol.  Some  less  ballad-like  carols  show- 
ing structural  repetition  are  The  Five  Joys  of  Christmas, 
Bring  Us  Good  Ale,  Born  is  the  Babe,  Out  of  the  Blossom 
Sprang  a  Thorn,  This  Rose  is  Railed  on  a  Ryse,  etc.14 
The  following  carol  is  not  in  ballad  stave  but  shows  a 
type  of  structural  repetition,  or  parallelism : — 15 

i«  From  the  Sloane  MS.  2593.     See  p.  175. 

i*  Edith  Rickert,  Old  English  Carols  (1910);  Jessie  L.  Weston, 
Old  English  Carols  (1911).  See  especially  Balliol  MS.  354  and 
Sloane  MS.  2593. 

"Hill  MS.,  ed.  Dyboski,  E.  E.  T.  S.  101    (1907),  p.  7. 


INCREMENTAL  REPETITION  127 

Make  we  mery  in  hall  &  bowr, 
Thys  tyme  was  born  owr  Savyowr. 

In  this  tyme  God  hath  sent 
Hys  own  Son,  to  be  present, 
To  dwell  with  vs  in  verament, 
God  that  ys  owr  Savyowr. 

In  this  tyme  that  ys  be-fall, 
A  child  was  born  in  an  ox  stall 
&  after  he  dyed  for  vs  all, 

God  that  ys  owr  Savyowr. 

In  this  tyme  an  angell  bryght 
Mete  in  sheperdis  vpon  a  nyght 
He  bade  them  do  a-non  ryght 
To  God  that  ys  owr  Saviowr. 

In  tbys  tyme  now  pray  we 

To  hym  that  dyed  for  vs  on  tre, 

On  vs  all  to  haue  pytee, 

God  that  ys  owr  Saviowr. 

The  carol  of  the  six  rose  branches,  "  All  of  a  rose,  a 
lovely  rose,  All  of  a  rose  I  sing  a  song,"  applies  the  secular 
liking  for  the  rose,  as  a  poetic  flower,  in  a  poem  of  religious 
symbolism,  in  sequence  form: — 16 

The  fyrst  branch  was  of  gret  myght, 
That  spronge  on  Crystmas  nyght, 
The  streme  shon  over  Bedlem  bryght, 

That  men  myght  se  both  brod  and  longe. 

The  ude  branch  was  of  gret  honowr, 
That  was  sent  from  hevyn  towr, 
Blessyd  be  that  fayer  flowr! 
Breke  it  shall  the  fendis  bondis. 

18  From  the  same  manuscript.  There  are  many  dramatic  carols  or 
carols  in  the  question  and  response  form  between  Mary  and  an  angel 
or  between  Mary  and  her  son,  in  the  Hill  manuscript. 


128  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

The  thyrd  branch  wyde  spred 
Ther  Mary  lay  in  her  bede, 
The  bryght  strem  in  kyngis  lede 
To  Bedlem,  ther  that  branch  thei  fond. 

The  unth  branch  sprong  in  to  hell, 
The  fendis  host  for  to  fell, 
Ther  myght  no  sowle  ther  in  dwell, 
Blessid  be  that  tyme  that  branch  gan  spryng. 

The  vth  branch  was  fayer  in  fote, 
That  sprong  to  hevyn  tope  &  rote, 
Ther  to  dwell  &  be  owr  bote 
&  yet  ys  sene  in  priestis  hondis. 

The  vith  branch  by  &  by, 
Yt  ys  the  v  joyes  of  myld  Mary, 
Now  Cryst  saue  all  this  cumpany, 
&  send  vs  gud  lyff  &  long. 

Incremental  repetition  and  parallelism  of  line  structure 
are  especially  characteristic  of  popular  religious  poetry, 
in  particular  of  revival  hymns.  It  is  well-known  that 
"  repetition  to  the  point  of  wearisomeness  is  a  favorite 
form  of  revival  hymns."  17  To  cite  illustration,  the  fol- 
lowing song  called  Weeping  Mary,  recovered  in  the 
twentieth  century  among  the  negroes,  affords  an  example 
of  parallelism : 

If  there's  any  body  here  like  Weeping  Mary, 

Call  upon  Jesus  and  he'll  draw  nigh, 

He'll  draw  nigh. 

0  glory, 'glory,  glory,  hallelujah, 

Glory  be  to  God  who  rules  on  high. 

"  E.   B.  Miles,   Some   Real  American  Music,   Harper's   Magazine, 
vol.  109,  pp.  121-122. 


INCREMENTAL  REPETITION  129 

If  there's  anybody  here  like  praying  Samuel, 
Call  upon  Jesus,  etc. 

If  there's  anybody  here  like  doubting  Thomas, 
Call  upon  Jesus,  etc. 

This  song  is  thought  by  Mr.  H.  E.  Krehbiel  to  be  an  orig- 
inal Afro- American  song,  and  he  printed  it  as  such.18  He 
limits  his  claim  for  the  originality  of  negro  songs  to  their 
religious  songs,  their  "  shouts  "  and  "  spirituals."  But 
Weeping  Mary  can  be  traced  to  the  singing  of  a  white 
woman  who  had  learned  it  at  a  Methodist  protracted  meet- 
ing somewhere  between  1826  and  1830,  long  antedating  its 
appearance  among  the  negroes.19  There  were  many 
stanzas  of  repetitional  pattern  and  the  whole  might  be 
continued  indefinitely.20  A  similar  history  may  be  noted 
for  a  song  included  among  T.  P.  Fenner's  collection  of 
Religious  Folk  Songs  of  the  Negro  as  sung  on  planta- 
tions: 21 

Wonder  where  is  good  old  Daniel, 
Way  over  in  the  Promise  Lan',  etc. 

Wonder  where's  dem  Hebrew  children,  etc. 
Wonder  where  is  doubtin'  Thomas,  etc. 
Wonder  where  is  sinkin'  Peter,  etc. 


Compare  with  this  the  old  revival  hymn — 


22 


is  Afro- American  Folk-Song,   1914. 

19  See  Modern  Language  Notes,  vol.  33,  p.  442,  1918. 

20  See  note  57,  p.  158. 

21  New  Ed.  1909,  p.  107. 

22  See  "Old  Revival  Hymns"  in  The  Story  of  Hymns  and  Tunes 
by  Theron  Brown  and  Hezekiah  Butterworth,  1896. 


130  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

Where  now  where  are  the  Hebrew  children? 
They  went  up  from  the  fiery  furnace,  etc. 

Where  now  is  the  good  Elijah?  etc. 
Where  now  is  the  good  old  Daniel?  etc. 
The  climax  was  reached  with 

By  and  by  we'll  go  to  meet  him, 
By  and  by  we'll  go  to  meet  him, 
By  and  by  we'll  go  to  meet  him, 
Safely  in  the  Promised  Land. 

It  might  be  mentioned  also  that  the  "  chariot "  frequent 
in  negro  spiritual?  played  a  role  in  older  revival  poetry,23 
But  whatever  their  origin,  negro  revival  hymns  and  planta- 
tion songs,  like  the  folk-songs  of  white  people,  abound  in 
instances  of  structural  repetition  and  in  sequences  of 
various  types.  Three  examples  may  be  given :  24 

Save  Me,  Lord,  Save  Me 

I  called  to  my  father; 

My  father  hearkened  to  me. 
And  the  last  word  I  heard  him  say 
Was,  Save  me,  Lord,  save  me. 

I  called  to  my  mother,  etc. 
I  called  to  my  sister,  etc. 

I  called  to  my  brother,  etc. 

23  Compare  H.  H.  Milman's  popular  hymn,  The  Chariot  of  Christ, 
or  The  Last  Day. 

2*  Marshall  W.  Taylor,  A  Collection  of  Revival  Hymns  and  Planta- 
tion Melodies,  1883. 


INCREMENTAL  REPETITION  131 

I  called  to  my  preacher,  etc. 
I  called  to  my  leader,  etc. 
I  called  to  my  children,  etc. 

He  Set  My  Soul  Free 

Go  and  call  the  bishops  in, 
Go  and  call  the  bishops  in, 
Go  and  call  the  bishops  in, 
And  ask  them  what  the  Lord  has  done. 

Go  and  call  the  elders  in,  etc. 
Go  and  call  the  deacons  in,  etc. 
Go  and  call  the  leaders  in,  etc. 
Go  and  call  the  Christians  in,  etc. 

Resurrection  of  Christ 

Go  and  tell  my  disciples, 
Go  and  tell  my  disciples, 
Go  and  tell  my  disciples, 
Jesus  is  risen  from  the  dead. 

Go  and  tell  poor  Mary  and  Martha,  etc. 
Go  and  tell  poor  sinking  Peter,  etc. 
Go  and  tell  the  Roman  Pilate,  etc. 
Go  and  tell  the  weeping  mourners,  etc. 

Natalie  Curtis  Burlin's  texts,  though  somewhat  shrunken 
from  those  of  the  same  songs  in  earlier  collections,  show 
the  same  liking  for  sequences : —  25 

as  Negro  Folk-Songs,  recorded  by  Natalie  Curtis  Burlin.     1018. 


132  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

O  ride  on  Jesus, 
Ride  on,  Jesus, 
Ride  on,  conquerin'  King. 

I  want  t'go  t'Hebb'n  in  de  mo'nin'. 

Ef  you  see  my  Father, 

0  yes, 
Jes'  tell  him  fo'  me, 

0  yes, 

For  t'  meet  me  t'morrow  in  Galilee: 
Want  t'go  t'Hebb'n  in  de  mo'nin'. 

Following  verses  may  substitute  the  words  "  sister  "  and 
"  brother  "  for  "  mother  "  and  "  father."  A  second  song, 
of  similar  pattern,  is  this : — 

Good  news,  Chariot's  comin', 

Good  news,  Chariot's  comin', 

Good  news,  Chariot's  comin', 

An'  I  don't  want  her  leave-a  me  behin'. 

Bar's  a  long  white  robe  in  de  Hebb'n  I  know,  etc. 
Later  verses  open  — 

Bar's  a  starry  crown  in  de  Hebb'n,  I  know,  etc. 
Bar's  a  golden  harp  in  de  Hebb'n,  I  know,  etc. 
Bar's  silver  slippers  in  de  Hebb'n,  I  know,  etc. 

Repetition  in  iterative  or  sequence  form  is  also  charac- 
teristic of  contemporary  -student  songs,  as  Forty-Nine  Bot- 
tles A-Hanging  on  the  Wall,  or  the  Song  of  a  Tree  (The 
Green  Grass  Grows  All  Round),  or  the  old-time  tem- 
perance songs,  like  The  Tee-Totallers  Are  Coming,  or 


INCREMENTAL  REPETITION  133 

The  Cold-Water  Pledge.  And  it  may  be  a  characteristic 
of  popular  laments,  as  The  Lyke-Wake  Dirge.  It  is  found 
in  nursery  songs  like  One,  two,  buckle  my  shoe,  or  One 
little,  two  little,  three  little  Injuns,"  etc.,  and  in  lullabies, 
like  many  which  have  been  preserved  from  the  fifteenth 
century.  Most  fundamentally,  it  is  characteristic  of  orally 
preserved  game  and  dance  songs,  which  have  been  illus- 
trated in  another  chapter;  but  here  it  is  of  the  inter- 
weaving type,  is  stable  and  part  of  the  fabric  of  the  song, 
not  iteration  of  the  type  characteristic  of  the  ballads. 

Incremental  repetition  appears  very  strikingly  in  Ameri- 
can folk-songs,  all  of  British  importation,  in  dialogue 
form,  which  are  never  classified  as  ballads.  An  instance  is 
the  familiar :  — 

0  where  have  you  been,  Billy  Boy,  Billy  Boy  ? 

O  where  have  you  been,  charming  Billy?" 

"  I  have  been  for  a  wife,  she's  the  treasure  of  my  life, 

She's  a  young  thing  but  can't  leave  her  mother." 

He  is  asked  whether  his  wife  can  make  a  cherry  pie,  a 
feathei  bed,  a  loaf  of  bread,  a  "  muly  cow,"  etc.,  and  gives 
humorous  responses.  In  The  Quaker's  Courtship  the 
wooer  says  in  repetitional  stanzas  that  he  has  a  ring  worth 
a  shilling,  a  kitchen  full  of  servants,  a  stable  full  of 
horses,  etc.,  and  asks  if  he  must  join  the  Presbyterians; 
but  he  meets  rebuff.  In  Soldier,  Soldier,  Wont  You 
Marry  Me?,  the  soldier  answers  in  lyrical  sequences  that 
he  has  no  shoes  to  put  on,  then  that  he  has  no  coat,  then 
that  he  has  no  hat.  When  the  girl  has  brought  these,  the 
song  ends  with  the  question  — 

"  How  could  I  marry  such  a  pretty  little  girl 
When  I  have  one  wife  to  home?" 


134  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

In  the  familiar  The  Milkmaid,  which  sounds  like  a  sur- 
vival of  a  pastourelle,  a  maiden  is  asked  in  stanzas  of  the 
iterative  type  "  O  where  are  you  going,  my  pretty  maid  ?  " 
whether  she  may  be  accompanied,  what  her  father  is,  and 
what  her  fortune  ?  She  answers  that  she  is  going  milking, 
that  her  father  is  a  farmer,  that  her  face  is  her  fortune, 
etc.,  and  when  her  questioner  follows  this  last  statement  by 
the  remark  "  Then  I  won't  have  you,  my  pretty  maid,"  she 
responds  with  "  Nobody  asked  you,"  etc.  To  cite  a  last 
example  of  these  dialogue  folk-songs  showing  incremental 
repetition,  in  A  Paper  of  Pins,  the  wooer  offers  the  girl 
a  paper  of  pins,  a  little  lap  dog,  a  coach  and  four,  a  coach 
and  six,  the  key  of  his  heart,  and  finally  a  chest  of  gold, 
if  she  will  marry  him.  All  the  offers  are  refused  until 
the  last.  When  this  is  accepted,  he  closes  the  sequence 
with  — ! 

"  Ha,  ha,  money  is  all,  woman's  love  is  nothing  at  all. 
I'll  not  marry,  I'll  not  marry,  I'll  not  marry  you." 

Farther,  structural  repetition  is  not  a  mannerism  ap- 
pearing in  primitive  poetry.  There  is  limitless  and 
wearisome  iteration  and  choral  response,  but  no  telling  of 
stories  by  the  question  and  answer  method  of  Lord  Randal, 
Edward,  The  Maid  Freed  from  the  Gallows,  and  Babylon. 
As  for  the  cowboy  pieces,26  in  those  which  their  collector 
indicates  as  of  communal  composition,  such  narrative  as 
they  have  is  not  presented  by  incremental  repetition  or  by 

28  An  example  is  afforded  by  The  Song  of  the  "  Metis "  Trapper 
by  Rolette,  Lomax,  Coivboy  Songs,  p.  320,  the  stanzas  of  which  open 
in  sequence,  "  Hurrah  for  the  great  white  way,"  "  Hurrah  for  the 
snow  and  the  ice,"  "  Hurrah  for  the  ike  and  the  cold,"  "  Hurrah  for 
the  black-haired  girls,"  but  the  cowboy  songs  as  a  whole  do  not 
exhibit  structural  repetition. 


INCREMENTAL  REPETITION  135 

the  question  and  answer  method  but  in  a  far  less  skilful 
or  lyrical  way. 

The  truth  is  that  repetition,  structural  or  stanzaic,  ver- 
bal, of  the  refrain  type,  or  consisting  of  interweaving  lines, 
may  be  found  in  all  types  of  popular  poetry,  from  nursery 
songs  to  revival  hymns.  Old  French  literature  is  that 
richest  in  mediaeval  lyric  poetry  and  in  dance  songs,  but 
old  French  lyrics  and  dance  songs  bear  no  resemblance  to 
ballads  and  they  are  plainly  aristocratic.  Structural  iter- 
ation belongs  to  popular  song  in  general,  indeed  it  is  very 
likely  to  be  developed  through  folk-preservation  when  it 
did  not  belong  to  a  song  in  its  original  form.  It  is  not 
certain  proof  of  dance  origin  even  among  primitive  peo- 
ples. It  characterizes  not  only  dance  lyrics  but  revival 
hymns,  game  and  labor  songs,  student  songs,  lullabies  and 
nursery  songs,  Christmas  carols,  laments,  and  songs  and 
folk-lyrics  in  general.  It  is  not  a  test  of  the  ballad  style, 
is  not  a  ballad  differentia,  since  it  belongs  to  other  styles 
also.  And  it  is  not  a  test  of  age  for  it  is  not  present  in 
some  of  the  oldest  ballads  and  is  developed  in  late  variants 
of  newer  ballads.  Moreover  it  is  a  mannerism  easily 
caught  and  of  great  assistance  in  promoting  folk-partici- 
pation in  singing.  The  ballad  is  the  only  type  of  folk 
song  showing  structural  repetition  or  parallelism  of  line  in 
the  presentation  of  narrative,  but  that  is  because  it  is  the 
only  type  of  folk-lyric  which  presents  narrative.  Struc- 
tural repetition  in  ballads  should  not  be  cited  as  proof 
that  the  latter  were  composed  in  some  manner  different 
from  other  lyric  verse,  for  it  is  a  feature  which  ballads 
share  with  folk-song  of  many  types ;  nor  is  its  appearance 
in  individual  ballads  proof  of  the  antiquity  in  type  of 
such  ballads. 


136  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

Besides  incremental  repetition,  other  ballad  mannerisms 
which  have  received  emphasis  are  the  so-called  "  climax 
of  relatives  "  and  the  ballad  motive  of  the  legacy,  or  the 
giving  of  testamentary  instructions.  Both  are  well  illus- 
trated by  The  Hangman's  Tree,  a  text  of  which  is  quoted 
in  full  in  another  chapter.27  In  neither  mannerism  may 
certainly  be  seen  proof  of  antiquity  or  of  the  communal 
origin  of  a  ballad.  Both  appear  in  the  later  rather 
than  in  the  earlier  ballad  texts;  and  the  climax  of  rela- 
tives —  better  called  a  sequence  of  relatives,  or  better 
still  a  sequence  merely,  for  the  sequence  may  be  of 
persons  other  than  relatives,  or  of  things 28 —  is,  as 
we  have  just  seen,  a  characteristic  of  revival  poetry 
and  of  general  folk  poetry  as  well.  Neither  mannerism 
appears  in  Judas,  our  oldest  ballad  text,  nor  in  the  ballads 
which  go  back  with  certainty  to  the  fifteenth  century,  nor 
in  texts  from  the  early  sixteenth  century.  They  might 
for  balladry,  if  chronology  of  appearance  count,  be  termed 
a  sign  of  comparative  lateness.  And  they  need  not  be 
unfailing  signs  of  communal  origin.  Will  and  testament 
features  played  an  important  part  in  mediaeval  litera- 
ture,29 and  by  the  early  modern  period  their  legacy  might 
well  appear  in  traditional  verse.  Like  the  sequence  of 
relatives,  the  giving  of  testamentary  instructions  is  a  man- 
nerism easily  caught  and  memorable,  and  it  is  in  no  way 
remarkable  that  it  should  be  found  in  ballads,  alongside 
the  "  last  goodnights,"  riddling,  and  other  devices  of  lit- 

27  See  p.  113. 

28  See  the  sequence  of  kirks  in  The  Gay  Goshawk,  or   of  harp- 
strings  or  of  tunes  in  The  Two  Sisters. 

29  E.  C.  Perrow,  Will  and  Testament  Literature.    Publications  of 
the  Wisconsin  Academy  of  Sciences,  vol.  xvn. 


INCREMENTAL  REPETITION  137 

erature  of  the  past.  The  probability  is  that  the  legacy 
feature  of  the  percentage  of  the  English  and  Scottish  bal- 
lads which  show  it  is  a  literary  heritage.  The  rapidity 
with  which  an  easily  caught  mannerism  may  spread  may 
be  illustrated  by  the  "  come  all  ye  "  opening  of  the  broad- 
sides, or  by  the  assimilation  of  the  briar-rose  motive  at 
the  end  of  texts  of  Fair  Margaret  and  Sweet  William,  Lord 
Lovel,  Earl  Brand,  and  Barbara  Allen,30  or  of  the  stanzas 
beginning  — 

"  0  who  will  shoe  your  feet,  my  love, 
And  who  will  glove  your  handf" 

of  The  Lass  of  Roch  Royal.  In  the  texts  of  Cecil  J.  Sharp 
and  Mrs.  Campbell,  these  stanzas  have  spread  to  The  Re- 
jected Lover,  and  The  True  Lover's  Farewell,  and  even 
to  John  Hardy,  which  seems  to  have  been  originally  a  negro 
song.31 

A  certain  type  of  sequence  of  relatives  is  rather  stock 
in  popular  song  of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries, 
especially  in  songs  of  the  death  bed  or  death-bed  confes- 
sion type.  In  The  Cowboy's  Lament  (The  Dying  Cow- 
6ot/),  which  derives  from  an  eighteenth  century  Irish 
popular  song,32  the  speaker  asks  to  have  messages  sent 
to  his  mother,  his  sister,  his  sweetheart.  In  Caroline  E. 
E.  Norton's  Bingen  on  the  Rhine,  the  sequence  runs  "  Tell 
my  brothers  and  companions,"  "  Tell  my  mother,"  "  Tell 
my  sister,"  "  There's  another  —  not  a  sister."  The  Dy- 

so  As  in  C.  J.  Sharp's  text,  Folk-Song  from  the  Southern  Appala- 
chians, p.  96. 

si  Folk- Song  from  the  Southern  Appalachians.  See  nos.  56,  61, 
87. 

szLomax,  Cowboy  Songs,  p.  74.  For  its  origin,  see  Mr.  Phillips 
Barry's  article,  cited  p.  207. 


138  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

ing  Calif 'ornian,  widely  known  over  the  United  States  in 
folk  song,  runs  in  the  longest  of  its  Nebraska  variants, 
"  Tell  my  father  when  you  meet  him,"  "  Tell  my  mother," 
"  Tell  my  sister,"  "  'Tis  my  wife  I  speak  of  now,"  etc.  In 
0  Bury  Me  not  on  the  Lone  Prairie,  as  in  the  sea  piece 
which  was  its  model,  is  the  same  sequence,  mother,  sister, 
sweetheart,  to  whom  messages  are  to  be  delivered.  So  in 
Buena  Vista  Battlefield,™  messages  are  to  be  sent  from  the 
dying  soldier  to  father,  mother,  sweetheart;  and  in  The 
Last  Longhorn,  a  cowboy  piece  patterned  on  this  type  of 
poem  — 

An  ancient  long-horned  bovine  lay  dying  by  the  river; 
There  was  lack  of  vegetation   and  the  cold  winds  made   him 
shiver  — 

are  found  "  Tell  the  Durhams  and  the  Herefords,"  "  Tell 
the  coyotes,"  etc.  Still  another  example  is  afforded  by 
A  Poor  Lonesome  Cowboy,  "  I  ain't  got  no  father,"  *'I 
ain't  got  no  mother,"  "  I  ain't  got  no  sister,"  "  I  ain't  got 
no  brother,"  "  I  ain't  got  no  sweetheart " — 

I'm  a  poor  lonesome  cowboy 
And  a  long  ways  from  home. 

All  this  illustrates  how  easily  a  familiar  pattern,  known 
through  some  well-known  song  or  songs,  is  assimilated. 
None  of  the  American  pieces  cited,  unless  the  last,  may 
fairly  be  said  to  have  had  communal  origin. 

Various  other  marks  of  style  for  the  English  and  Scot- 
tish popular  ballads,  besides  incremental  repetition,  the 
giving  of  testamentary  instructions,  and  the  sequence  of 
relatives  —  for  example,  presenting  narrative  by  question 

88  Cowboy  Songs,  pp.  3,  34,  197. 


DIALOGUE  AND  SITUATION  BALLADS     139 

and  answer,  the  ballad  vocabulary,  the  use  of  set  epithets, 
alliterative  formulae,  and  the  like,  have  been  treated  in 
other  chapters. 

n DIALOGUE  AND   SITUATION    BALLADS   AND   THEORIES 

OF    DEVELOPMENT 

That  situation  ballads  in  dialogue  form  represent  a 
primal  type  of  ballad  and  that  there  is  development  from 
these  to  length  and  complexity  is  a  view  which  is  often 
brought  forward.  According  to  Professor  Walter  Morris 
Hart,  "  the  ballad,  in  its  simplest  and  most  typical  forms, 
might  be  called  a  short  story  in  embryo.  It  is  a  song  about 
a  single  situation  "  .  .  .  "  there  is  development  from  the 
simple  to  the  complex,  from  the  homogeneous  to  the  het- 
erogeneous .  .  .  the  simplest  and  most  homogeneous  bal- 
lads or  groups  of  ballads  are  actually  older  or  representa- 
tive of  something  older,  than  the  most  complex  and  hete- 
rogeneous. We  have  already  traced  this  development 
from  the  relatively  simple  ballad  of  Edward  to  the  rela- 
tively complex  Gest  of  Robyn  Hode." 34  An  adherent 
of  the  same  school  formulates  this  theory  of  development 
as  follows :  "  Dialogue  is  the  primitive  fact ;  scenario, 
character,  and  other  explanatory  matters  come  later.  The 
older  and  more  primitive  a  ballad  is,  generally  speaking, 
the  greater  the  proportion  of  dialogue  "  .  .  .  "  We  can 
now  understand  what  Gummere  calls  communal  composi- 
tion and  can  see  the  significance  ...  of  such  things  as 
refrain  and  dialogue.  They  are  principles  of  composition. 
They  make  possible  the  production  of  a  fairly  well-or- 

34  English  Popular  Ballads  (1916),  pp.  45,  49.  This  is  the  thesis 
of  Professor  Hart's  Ballad  and  Epic,  Harvard  Studies  and  Notes 
in  Philology  and  Literature  (1907),  rx. 


140  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

dered  ballad  by  the  common  activity  of  the  whole  tribe."  35 
This  hypothesis  of  development  is  quite  unproved,  and 
tested  by  the  processes  of  living  folk-song  and  by  the  songs 
of  savage  tribes,  it  is  improbable.  And  an  interesting 
feature  of  the  assumption  underlying  it  is  its  inconsis- 
tency. The  writers  who  hold  it  affirm  that  the  ballad  is 
the  earliest  universal  form  of  poetry,  yet  by  their  own 
theories  the  early  simple  forms  only  later  become  ballads 
by  developing  complexity  and  plot.  The  ballads  are  the 
earliest  form  of  song,  yet  they  develop  from  earlier  song. 
The  date  of  recovery  of  ballads  is  not  a  decisive  factor 
in  determining  their  antiquity,  yet  it  is  to  be  taken  into 
account.  Judging  by  the  date  of  recovery,  the  situation 
ballads,  Edw-ard  and  Lord  Randal  —  from  the  simplicity 
of  whose  structure  Professor  Hart  develops  the  epic  com- 
plexity of  the  Robin  Hood  ballads  —  are  of  later  rather 
than  earlier  composition.  They  certainly  come  to  us  in 
late  form,  as  pointed  out  elsewhere.  Edward  is  told. as 
completely  and  with  as  telling  use  of  suspense  and  climax 
as  a  literary  ballad  like  Rossetti's  Sister  Helen.  It  is  a 
somewhat  doubtful  evolution  which  passes  onward  from 
the  artistic  quality  of  these  pieces  into  the  crudeness  and 
length  of  the  Robin  Hood  narratives.  But  aside  from 
the  late  appearance  of  the  best  ballads  illustrating  the 
"  earliest "  stage,  it  should  be  pointed  out  that  in  general 
the  presence  of  dialogue  in  poetry  is  a  sign  of  compara- 

35  G.  H.  Stempel,  A  Book  of  Ballads  (1917),  pp.  xvi,  xxvii. 
Possibly  this  is  the  view  also  of  Professor  F.  M.  Padelford,  who 
speaking  of  the  debate  of  holly  and  ivy  in  mediaeval  literature  re- 
marks that  "  like  other  songs  of  winter  and  summer,  it  harks  back 
to  that  communal  period  when  dialogue  was  just  beginning  to  emerge 
from  the  tribal  chorus."  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature, 
H,  p.  431. 


DIALOGUE  AND  SITUATION  BALLADS     141 

tive  lateness  in  composition.  It  does  not  appear  in  the 
epic  poetry  of  early  peoples.  The  speeches  of  characters 
in  Homer,  Virgil,  Beowulf  are  long  declamations.  So 
in  the  older  dramas,  the  speeches  are  long  declamations. 
The  breaking  up  of  the  talk  of  characters,  in  narrative 
and  dramatic  literature,  into  give-and-take  dialogue  occurs, 
as  it  were,  before  our  eyes.  In  the  Old  English  period 
there  is  very  little  in  the  poetical  literature  that  could  be 
called  dialogue.  The  nearest  is  to  be  found  in  the  works 
of  Cynewulf  and  his  school.  It  is  after  the  Norman 
Conquest  that  it  begins  to  enter,  in  lyric  and  narrative 
minstrelsy,  until  dialogue  in  one  form  or  another,  it  is 
agreed  by  scholars,  becomes  part  of  the  minstrel's  and 
the  song  composer's  stock  in  trade.36  In  Old  French  lit- 
erature, so  largely  the  source  of  or  so  largely  influencing 
Middle  English  literature,  dialogue  or  semi-dialogue  ap- 
pears in  chansons  a  danser  of  literary  type  between  soloists 
and  a  chorus,  in  chansons  a  personnages,  or  chansons  de  mal 

38  An  excellent  example  of  use  of  the  question  and  answer  method 
is  afforded  by  the  early  fourteenth  century  song  of  a  maiden  whose 
food  was  "  the  primrose  and  the  violet "  and  whose  bower  was  "  the 
red  rose  and  the  lily  flower,"  preserved  in  the  MS.  Rawlinson  D 
914  f  1.  It  is  too  properly  a  song  to  be  termed  "  literary  "  but  it 
is  obviously  for  sophisticated  circles  and  of  the  "  conscious  art " 
type.  Middle  English  religious  lyrics  afford  many  examples  of 
dialogue  songs. 

There  is  an  excellent  example  of  a  question  and  answer  lyric, 
between  a  mother  and  daughter  in  the  ballad  manner  in  Old  Portu- 
guese troubadour  poetry,  by  King  Denis  (1279-1325),  Das  Lieder- 
buch  des  Konigs  Denis  von  Portugal,  ed.  H.  R.  Lang  (1894),  pp. 
xcv,  75;  Ferdinand  Wolf,  Studien  zur  Geschichte  der  Spanischen  und 
Portuguiesischen  Nationalliteratur  (1859),  p.  708.  Examples  may 
be  found  also  in  Old  Italian  poetry.  Dialogue  between  mother  and 
daughter,  like  other  dialogue  forms,  seems  to  have  been  a  popular 
troubadour  mode. 


142  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

mariees,  in  pastourelles  —  all  these  in  the  form  in  which 
we  have  them  being  of  minstrel  origin.  It  appears,  as  so 
well  known,  in  the  elaborate  debates,  disputes,  and  the  like, 
which  the  Middle  Ages  so  liked.  From  these  lyrical  de- 
bates it  probably  entered  the  ballades  in  dialogue  form  37 
in  which  it  remained  popular  for  three  centuries.  Lyrical 
dialogue  and  question  and  answer  are  both  characteristic 
enough  of  late  medieval  "  art "  song  for  derivation,  when 
they  appear  in  the  ballads,  from  tribal  improvisation  or 
from  that  of  peasant  communes,  to  be  unnecessary  and  im- 
probable. 

It  is  known  that  medieval  minstrels  often  recited  or 
gave  a  type  of  impersonation  dramatically.  Monologue 
and  dialogue  were  rendered  dramatically,  though  by  one 
person.  There  are  clear  traces  of  this  in  many  religious 
narratives  and  songs.  Thus  may  have  been  given  the 
early  religious  ballads  of  Judas  and  St.  Stephen  and  Herod. 
The  presence  of  dialogue  and  dramatic  situation  in  such 
abundance  in  the  ballads  might  well  have  some  relation 
to  a  dramatic  manner  of  delivery.  The  more  song-like 
lyrical  ballads,  those  with  refrains,  are  not  those  pre- 
served to  us  in  the  oldest  texts  but  come  from  the  Tudor 
period  and  thereafter. 

Professor  Hart's  theory  of  development  from  the  short 
and  simple  to  the  long  and  complex  sounds  authentic  but 
there  are  many  considerations  which  do  not  reinforce  it. 
It  would  be  easy  and  plausible,  if  we  discard  chronology, 
to  build  up  a  theory  of  development  from  the  short  one- 
act  plays  of  the  twentieth  century  to  the  five-act  dramas 
of  the  Elizabethans;  or  from  the  short  story  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  to  the  long  novel  of  the  eighteenth ;  or  from 
37  Helen  Louise  Cohen,  The  Ballade  (1915),  p.  56. 


DIALOGUE  AND  SITUATION  BALLADS     143 

the  periodical  essays  of  the  eighteenth  to  many  of  the 
longer  prose  types,  the  sermon,  the  oration,  the  treatise, 
the  satire,  which  preceded  it.  If  there  is  development  in 
literature  from  simplicity  to  complexity  there  is  also 
development  from  length  and  complexity  to  brevity  and 
simplicity.  Fair  analogy  may  be  drawn  with  the  devel- 
opment in  language,  as  illustrated  by  the  complex  inflec- 
tional structure  of  Sanskrit  or  Greek  compared  with  the 
simplified  analytical  structure  of  present  English.  There 
is  a  linguistic  tendency  to  shorten  and  simplify  forms,  to 
drop  inflections,  and  to  analyse  "  sentence-words "  into 
short  elements,  co-existent  with  the  tendency,  earlier  rec- 
ognized, to  lengthen  monosyllables  into  polysyllables  by 
composition.  In  the  chronology  of  Indo-European  lan- 
guages, the  languages  of  complex  structure  appear  early 
and  those  simplest  in  structure  come  last.  And  this  dual- 
ity of  development  may  be  paralleled  from  literature. 

The  mass  of  the  English  ballads,  or  lyrical  narratives, 
certainly  appear  in  literary  history  later  than  do  the 
epics  and  chansons  de  geste  into  which  they  are  supposed 
to  develop.  Says  E.  K.  Chambers,  "  The  ballad,  indeed, 
at  least  on  one  side  of  it  was  the  detritus  as  the  lai  had  been 
the  germ  of  romance."  38  Professor  Ker  points  out  that 
"...  it  is  certain  that  the  ballads  of  Christendom  in 
the  Middle  Ages  are  related  in  a  strange  way  to  the  older 
epic  poetry.  .  .  .  The  ballad  poets  think  in  the  same 
manner  as  the  epic  poets,  and  choose  by  preference  the 
same  kind  of  plot."  39  As  the  epic  and  romantic  long 
narratives,  to  be  recited  or  sung,  become  outworn,  new 
lyrical  narratives  to  be  recited  or  sung  appear.  In  any 

ss  The  Mediaeval  Stage,  I,  p.  69. 

s»  English  Literature:  Mediaeval,  p.  161. 


144  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

case,  it  is  not  proved  that  the  transition  was  from  ballad 
to  epic  in  mediawal  literature,  from  short  narratives  to 
be  recited  or  sung  to  long  and  complex  pieces  to  be  recited 
or  read.  A  case  could  be  made  out  by  some  one  caring  to 
elaborate  the  thesis,  for  the  development  from  mediaeval 
epic  to  mediaeval  ballad.  No  material  at  all,  if  the  facts  of 
chronology  be  scrutinized,  can  be  found  to  illustrate  the 
hypothesis  for  ballad  origins  of  a  "  traditional  epic  process 
working  upon  material  made  at  a  primitive  stage  not  quite 
beneath  our  sight,"  while  material  illustrating  the  contrary 
chronological  order,  mediaeval  epic  narrative,  then  me- 
diseval  ballad,  exists  in  abundance.  We  are  told  that 
"  even  a  mere  comparison  of  early  stages,  in  a  Babylon,  a 
Maid  Freed  from  the  Gallows,  with  later  stages  in  the 
Robin  Hood  cycle,  ought  to  place  this  view  [of  narrative 
development  from  dialogue  and  situation  songs  originating 
in  the  dance]  beyond  denial."  40  But  the  long  epic  narra- 
tives of  Robin  Hood  appear  early  and  the  more  song-like 
ones,  from  which  the  former  are  supposed  to  develop,  come 
later.  And  when  we  watch  the  development  of  existent 
mediaeval  dance  songs,  or  of  present-day  folk-improvisa- 
tions, preserved  under  the  right  conditions,  we  find  noth- 
ing which  bears  out  the  hypothesis  of  development  from 
mediaeval  song  to  ballad,  to  epic.  Rather  is  it  contra- 
dicted, if  we  discard  conjecture  and  stay  by  fact  in  our 
consideration  of  material. 

Since  both  are  folk-poetry  and  both  are  preserved  in 
tradition,  comparison  seems  especially  in  place  between 
English  ballads  in  dialogue  form  and  game  and  dance 
songs.  The  chief  collector  of  the  latter,  Mrs.  Gomme,41 

«  Gummere,  The  Popular  Ballad,  pp.  284-285. 
*i  Dictionary  of  British  Folk-Lore,  vol.  II,  p.  500. 


DIALOGUE  AND  SITUATION  BALLADS     145 

holds  that  game  and  dance  songs  in  dialogue  form  are  of 
later  origin;  her  opinion  is  based  on  much  first-hand 
experience  with  the  ways  of  folk-song.  And  it  is  to  be 
noted  that  dialogue  and  situation  songs  appear  in  other 
lyric  types  beside  ballads  and  game  songs.  Many  carols 
both  of  the  literary  and  of  the  more  popular  types  take  this 
form  and  many  religious  lyrics,  and  so  do  laments  and 
dirges;  and  these  are  preserved  in  texts  antedating  those 
of  most  of  the  ballads. 

Communal  improvised  folk-poetry  as  we  can  watch  it 
among  cowboys,  lumbermen,  negroes,  European  peasants, 
does  not  exhibit  the  ballad  of  situation  in  dialogue  form 
telling  a  story.  As  for  primitive  poetry,  it  is  rather  the 
progenitor  of  modern  poetry  and  drama  in  general  than 
specifically  of  a  dialogue  (ultimately  becoming  an  epic) 
ballad  type 42  which  makes  its  appearance  during  the 
Middle  Ages.  In  neither  modern  improvised  folk  poetry 
nor  in  the  choral  singing  and  response  of  primitive  poetry 
is  to  be  found  the  body  of  material  needed  to  bear  out  the 
theory  stated  at  the  outset  of  this  chapter.  Simple  as  it 
may  seem,  to  tell  a  story  with  completeness  and  cohesion 
by  dialogue  is  much  too  difficult  for  folk  art,  whether 
mediaeval,  modem,  or  primitive.  The  safe  generaliza- 
tion is  that  the  story  song  is  not  a  primary  but  a  devel- 
oped type  in  the  evolution  of  literature,  that  the  story  song 

*2  An  illustration  from  primitive  poetry  representing  the  nearest 
approach  which  is  reached  to  dialogue  ballads  is  afforded  by  the 
harvest-song  dance  of  a  Boro  chief,  a  two-line  strophe  to  which  his 
wife  responds,  in  two  lines  of  nearly  the  same  words,  to  be  followed 
by  the  same  two  lines  from  a  chorus.  See  T.  Whiffen,  The  North- 
Weat  Amazons  (1915),  p.  199.  But  such  songs  of  primitive  peoples 
are  not  the  special  ancestor  of  that  minor  lyric  type,  the  ballad,  but 
of  song  of  many  kinds. 


146  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

in  which  dialogue  predominates  is  still  later,43  and  that 
both  emerge  from  a  higher  origin  than  unlettered  folk- 
improvisation. 

Ill THE    "  UNIFORMITY  "    OP    THE    BALLAD    STYLE 

"  It  is  a  significant  fact,"  says  a  well-known  writer  on 
ballads,44  "  that  wherever  found,  the  ballad  style  and  man- 
ner are  essentially  the  same."  Many  make  the  same  gen- 
eralization. But  this  is  true  only  in  the  most  general 
sense.  It  presupposes  too  great  fixity  in  the  ballad  style. 
The  ballad  is  a  lyric  type  exhibiting  epic,  dramatic,  and 
choral  elements;  but  within  the  type  there  is  as  great 
variation  as  within  other  lyric  types.  The  ballad  style  is 
hardly  more  "  essentially  the  same  "  than  the  song  style 
in  general,  or  the  sonnet  style,  or  the  ode  style.  There 
is  no  single  dependable  stylistic  test  even  for  the  English 
and  Scottish  traditional  ballads;  and  there  are  wide  dif- 
ferences between  the  ballads  of  divergent  peoples,  Scan- 
dinavian, German,  Spanish,  American.  There  are  dif- 
ferences in  the  stanza  form,  in  the  presence  and  use  of 
refrains,  iteration,  and  choral  repetition,  in  the  preser- 
vation of  archaic  literary  touches,  in  the  method  of  nar- 
ration, and  the  like.  The  similarity  in  style  of  the  pieces 
he  included  was  the  chief  guide  of  Professor  F.  J.  Child 

43  It  may  be  pointed  out  that  when  a  ballad  is  preserved  in  folk 
tradition  dialogue  sometimes  gains  prominence  as  the  links  in  the 
narrative  drop  out.  When  only  fragments  of  some  ballad  or  song 
are  remembered,  these  fragments  are  occasionally  bits  of  dialogue. 
But  such  a  tendency  is  not  marked.  In  general  it  is  what  is  most 
striking  in  the  individual  piece,  a  situation,  event,  tragic  or  comic 
crisis,  striking  turn  of  expression,  sometimes  the  refrain  only,  for 
dance  and  game  songs,  that  lingers  in  the  memory,  when  the  song 
as  a  whole  has  been  lost. 

«  Walter  Morris  Hart,  English  Popular  Ballads  (1916),  p.  46. 


"  UNIFORMITY  "  OF  BALLAD  STYLE     147 

in  his  selections  for  his  collection  of  English  and  Scot- 
tish balla  Jc< .  yet  he  encountered  such  variety  instead  of 
essential  uniformity  that  he  was  often  in  doubt  what  to 
include  and  what  to  omit,  and  fluctuated  in  his  decisions. 
He  made  many  changes  of  entry  between  his  English  and 
Scottish  Ballads,  published  in  1858-1859,  and  his  final 
collection  published  in  ten  parts,  from  1882-1898.  He 
would  not  have  altered  his  decision  concerning  so  many 
pieces  had  the  test  of  style  been  so  dependable  as  is  usually 
assumed. 

Even  the  stanzaic  structure  of  ballads  is  not  uniform. 
Some  of  the  older  ballad  texts  are  in  couplet  lines,  while 
the  later  are  usually  in  quatrains,  and  there  are  many 
variants  of  both  forms.  The  ballad  stanza  is  hardly  more 
stable  than  the  hymn  stanza.  And  it  varies  not  only  in 
form  but  in  movement,  in  the  character  of  the  expression, 
and  in  the  lyrical  quality.  Sometimes  the  story  is  told 
in  the  third  person,  sometimes,  as  in  Jamie  Douglas,  in 
the  first  person,  as  is  the  case  in  so  many  Danish  ballads. 
The  ballads  were  obviously  composed  to  be  recited,  or  to 
be  sung  to  or  by  popular  audiences;  and,  like  hymns, 
they  show  brevity  and  simplicity  of  form.  Otherwise 
there  is  wide  fluctuation.  Were  the  style  "  essentially 
the  same  "  the  differences  in  the  quality  of  the  ballads 
would  lie  only  in  their  plots.  Yet  two  texts  of  the  same 
story  often  have  a  gulf  between  them.  A  staple  example 
may  be  found  in  the  narration  of  the  same  occurrence  in 
the  earlier  and  the  later  texts  of  The  Hunting  of  the 
Cheviot.  The  earlier  text  contains  the  effective  and  often 
quoted  stanza  — 

For  Wetharryngton  my  harte  was  wo, 
that  euer  be  slayne  shulde  be; 


148  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

For  when  both  his  leggis  wear  hewyne  in  to, 
yet  he  knylyd  and  fought  on  hys  kny. 

The  corresponding  stanza  in  The  Chevy  Chase  sounds  like 
a  travesty  — 

For  Witherington  needs  must  I  wayle 

as  one  in  dolefull  dumpes. 
For  when  his  leggs  were  smitten  of, 

he  fought  vpon  his  stumpes. 

The  same  discrepancy  may  be  noted  between  Percy's  and 
Motherwell's  texts  of  Edward. 

Many  critics  have  commented  upon  the  relative  flatness 
of  the  style  of  the  English  traditional  ballads  compared 
to  the  Scottish.  Professor  Beers  45  thinks  that  the  su- 
periority of  the  Northern  balladry  may  have  been  due  to 
the  heavy  settlement  of  Northmen  in  the  border  region. 
Danish  literature  is  especially  rich  in  ballads.  It  is  per- 
haps due  in  part  to  Danish  settlement  in  the  North  and 
to  the  large  admixture  in  Northern  blood  and  dialect  that 
the  North  Countrie  became  par  excellence  the  ballad  land. 
English  ballads,  unlike  the  lowland  Scotch,  are  often  flat, 
garrulous,  spiritless,  didactic.  Professor  F.  E.  Bryant  46 
thought  that  the  ballad  of  the  Child  type  was  not  very 
current  in  Southern  England,  where  the  institution  of 
the  printed  or  stall  ballad  came  to  play  so  large  a  role 
and  established  a  current  type  of  another  and  less  poetical 
pattern.  The  discrepancy  in  style  between  Northern  and 
Southern  ballads  might  then  be  ascribed  to  the  dom- 
inance of  stall  balladry  in  London  while  it  played  no  part 

45  A  History  of  English  Romanticism  in  the  Eighteenth  Century, 
pp.  266,  267. 

4«  A  History  of  English  Balladry  (1913),  p.  192. 


"  UNIFORMITY  "  OF  BALLAD  STYLE     149 

in  the  North.  Mr.  T.  F.  Henderson 47  places  emphasis 
upon  the  superiority  of  Scotch  lyric  poetry  in  general  in 
the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries.  Its  "  makers  "  and 
bards  were  artists  of  special  training  and  descent.  Their 
influence  is  dominant  for  generations  and  their  legacy  may 
be  seen  in  Scottish  song  of  the  eighteenth  century.  North- 
ern vernacular  song,  he  points  out,  is  more  closely  linked 
to  the  past  than  the  popular  minstrelsy  of  England.  It 
represents  more  fully  the  national  sentiments,  associa- 
tions, and  memories.  It  includes  many  numbers  that 
bear  the  hall-mark  of  an  ancient  and  noble  descent. 

The  relation  is  close  of  the  Northern  ballad  style  to 
that  of  fifteenth  century  Scottish  poetry  and  to  Scot- 
tish popular  song  as  it  emerges  in  the  eighteenth  century. 
To  cite  illustration,  Henryson's  Robyne  and  Makyne  and 
The  Bludy  Sark  are  astonishingly  ballad-like  in  stanzaic 
form  and  in  expression,  though  they  were  not  composed 
for  oral  currency  and  the  themes  are  not  heroic  or  border 
themes.  The  Bludy  Sark  opens  as  follows :  — 

This  hundir  yeir  I  hard  be  tald 

Thair  was  a  worthy  king; 
Dukes,  erlis,  and  barounis  bald 

He  had  at  his  bidding. 

This  lord  was  anceanne  and  aid, 

And  sexty  yearis  couth  ring; 
He  had  a  dochter  fair  to  fald, 

A  lusty  lady  ying. 

The  ballad  mannerism  of  forced  accent  is  noticeable,  and 
in  Robyne  and  Makyne  especially  striking  use  is  made  of 
dialogue.  If  these  pieces  had  been  composed  for  recita- 

« Scottish  Vernacular  Literature    (1898),   p.  385. 


150  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

tion  or  singing,  if  they  had  had  oral  currency  for  some 
generations  with  consequent  transformations,  assimila- 
tions, and  re-creation,  both  might  possibly  seem  the  most 
orthodox  of  traditional  ballads. 

To  return  to  the  subject  of  variation  of  style  within 
the  Child  ballads,  the  precariousness  of  style  as  a  test  of 
what  is  properly  a  ballad  and  what  is  not  is  shown  by 
The  Nut  Brown  Maid.  It  resembles  some  of  the  tradi- 
tional ballads  so  closely  in  style  as  to  win  for  itself  for  a 
long  time  treatment  as  one  of  the  latter.  It  was  included, 
for  example,  in  the  first  ballad  collection  published  by 
Professor  Child.  But  it  has  now  very  properly  lost  such 
classification  since  it  is  really  a  debate  piece,  a  bit  of 
special  pleading,  not  a  lyric  tale. 

There  are  some  who  classify  the  American  cowboy 
songs  as  "  American  ballads."  48  It  need  hardly  be  said 
that  their  style  is  utterly  different  from  that  of  the  Child 
pieces.  Conventional  epithets,  wrenched  accent,  struc- 
tural repetition  in  narration,  use  of  the  "  legacy  "  motive, 
etc.,  are  all  missing  save  where  the  songs  are  made  over 
from  Old  World  ballads.  Most,  however,  are  songs  rather 
than  ballads,  and  their  chief  collector  has  so  termed 
them.49 

If  by  the  statement  that  ballads  show  uniformity  of 
style  is  meant  that  all  ballads  are  likely  to  show  a  certain 
structural  mannerism,  i.  e.,  structural  or  lyrical  repeti- 
tion, so-called  "  incremental  repetition,"  it  should  be 
pointed  out  that  this  is  not  a  differentia  of  the  ballad  style, 
or  proof  of  some  special  mode  of  genesis  for  ballads,  for  it 
is  a  characteristic  of  popular  song  in  general.  Parallel- 

«  G.  H.  Stempel,  A  Book  of  Ballads   (1917),  p.  145. 
*»  J.  A.  Lomax,  Cowboy  Songs  (1910). 


"  UNIFORMITY  "  OF  BALLAD  STYLE     151 

ism  of  line  structure  and  incremental  repetition  are  found 
in  mediaeval  songs,  both  religious  and  secular,  and  in  folk- 
songs of  many  types :  carols,  student  songs,  nursery  songs 
and  lullabies,  revival  hymns,  etc.,  as  well  as  (in  a  distinc- 
tive way  which  is  not  the  ballad  way)  in  game  a-nd  dance 
songs.  Lyrical  repetition  in  presenting  narrative  is 
found  only  in  ballads,  for  the  ballad  is  the  only  narrative 
type  of  folk-song ;  but  ballads  can  be  ballads  which  do  not 
show  it.  Its  frequent  presence  in  English  ballads  is  a 
characteristic  which  they  share  with  other  types  of  folk- 
song. It  is  not  an  essential  characteristic  of  their  struc- 
ture, and  it  is  more  abundant  in  later  than  in  earlier  texts. 
There  are  many  varieties  of  it;  and  primarily  it  is  some- 
thing to  be  associated  not  merely  with  the  traditional  bal- 
lad style  but  with  the  style  of  folk-song  in  general. 

Comparison  shows  many  points  of  difference  as  well  as 
of  resemblance  in  the  styles  of  Danish,  Russian,  Spanish, 
Scandinavian,  English  and  Scottish,  and  American  bal- 
lads. What  they  have  in  common  are  the  features  on 
which  we  rest  the  definition  of  folk  ballads  as  a  lyric  type. 
They  are  story  pieces,  they  are  singable  or  are  easily  re- 
cited, and  their  authors  and  origins  have  been  lost  to  view. 
The  real  truth  of  the  matter  may  be  stated  as  follows. 
There  is  no  universal  ballad  style  essentially  the  "  same  " 
apart  from  locality  or  chronology,  even  when  we  limit  our 
consideration  to  traditional  folk-ballads.  Within  one 
community,  however,  through  a  certain  duration,  there  is 
likely  to  be  uniformity  of  style  in  the  ballads  preserved  in 
folk-tradition.  Popular  preservation  has  a  levelling  effect 
on  pieces  which  have  commended  themselves  to  the  folk- 
consciousness  and  have  been  handed  down  in  tradition. 
Pieces  of  all  types  and  origins  are  made  over  to  conform 


152  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

to  the  horizons  of  the  singers.  A  negro  song  may  even 
take  on  characteristics  of  the  English  and  Scottish  ballads 
when  recovered  from  white  singers  in  regions  where  Old 
World  ballads  play  an  important  role  in  the  folk  reper- 
tory.50 Examination  of  a  body  of  folk-songs  may  reveal 
wide  divergence  of  provenance  and,  originally,  of  style. 
Yet,  as  in  the  cowboy  pieces,  the  appearance  of  homo- 
geneity may  soon  be  assumed..  They  seem  to  be  the  pro- 
duct of,  and  to  mirror  the  life  of,  those  from  whom  they 
were  recovered.  Pieces  of  all  types  are  assimilated  in 
folk-song;  in  the  course  of  time  they  come  to  borrow  ele- 
ments from  one  another;  mannerisms  which  are  easily 
caught  spread;  until  similarity  of  style  is  approximated. 
The  ballad  stanza,  like  the  hymn  stanza,  has  certain  limi- 
tations conditioned  by  the  powers  of  the  singers,  or  by 
the  vocal  and  psychological  limitations  of  popular  song  in 
general.  Yet  in  the  long  run  styles  change  for  folk 
poetry  as  they  do  for  book  poetry.  British  popular,  song 
of  the  nineteenth  century  is  not  like  that  of  the  seven- 
teenth, nor  is  that  of  the  seventeenth  like  that  of  the 
fifteenth.  American  sentimental,  comic,  and  patriotic 
popular  songs  of  the  twentieth  century  are  of  other  patterns 
from  those  current  in  the  nineteenth.  The  song  modes 
of  John  Brown,  Marching  through  Georgia,  Old  Dan 
Tucker,  Zip  Coon,  Lorena,  have  given  way  to  those  of 
Tipperary,  Keep  the  Home  Fires  Burning,  The  Long 
Long  Trail,  Over  There.  These  are  songs  not  ballads,  and 
some  of  them  are  of  British  origin ;  but  the  same  general- 

so  Compare  John  Hardy  ( Campbell  and  Sharp,  Folk-Song  of  the 
Southern  Appalachians,  No.  87),  in  which,  as  in  several  other  songs 
in  the  repertory  of  the  singers  contributing,  a  passage  has  been  as- 
similated from  the  Old- World  ballad,  The  Lass  of  Roch  Royal. 


IMPROVISATION  AND  FOLK-SONG      153 

ization  is  true  for  the  style  of  our  contemporary  story- 
songs  or  ballads.  The  uniformity  of  the  ballad  style  is  a 
uniformity  for  one  people,  or  one  class  of  people,  during 
one  or  more  generations ;  otherwise  there  is  only  the  uni- 
formity of  simplicity  to  be  expected  of  popular  song  of  all 
types. 

IV IMPROVISATION    AND    FOLK-SONG 

It  seems  clear  that  it  is  time  to  instil  caution  into  our 
association  of  the  primitive  festal  throng  improvising  and 
collaborating,  and  hypothetical  throngs  of  peasants  or  vil- 
lagers collaborating  in  the  creation  of  the  English  and 
Scottish  popular  ballads.  Primitive  song  and  the  medi- 
aeval ballads  are  separate  phenomena,  with  a  tremendous 
gulf  in  time  and  civilization  between.  No  doubt  some 
of  the  choral  improvisations  of  savage  peoples  found  or 
find  permanence,  as  is  the  case  with  individual  improvisa- 
tions, and  also  with  songs  thought  out  in  solitude  — 
or  "  dreamed  "  in  the  Indian  way.  But  such  songs  — 
consisting  of  a  few  words,  or  a  few  lines  monotonously  re- 
peated —  are  quite  a  different  thing  from  improvisations 
of  length,  having  a  definite  narrative  element,  and  high 
artistic  value  as  poetry.  Most  primitive  improvisations 
are  no  tax  on  the  memory,  and  hardly,  in  view  of  their 
brevity,  on  the  creative  power.51  A  singer  with  a  good 

si  In  the  field  of  primitive  ritual  song  there  are  many  feats  of 
memory  that  are  quite  wonderful.  Long  years  are  required  for  an 
Indian  to  become  a  really  adept  Tenderer  of  tribal  rituals.  See, 
for  examples  of  verbal  length,  in  the  27th  Report  of  the  Bureau  of 
American  Ethnology,  the  ritual  song  of  39  lines  on  p.  42,  or  that 
of  50  lines  on  pp.  571-572,  at  the  bottom  very  nobly  poetic.  Sim- 
ilar examples  are  to  be  found  in  other  tribes.  Also  there  is  some- 
thing remotely  analogous  to  ballad  structure  in  such  ritual  songs  as 


154  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

voice  and  a  turn  for  melody  might  succeed,  whether  he 
could  compose  words  very  well  or  not. 

When  it  is  affirmed  that  improvising  folk-throngs  cre- 
ated the  literary  type  appearing  in  the  English  and  Scot- 
tish ballads  of  the  Child  collection,  pieces  like  The  Hunt- 
ing of  the  Cheviot,  the  Robin  Hood  pieces,  Sir  Patrick 
Spens,  Lord  Randal,  etc.,  the  affirmation  is  pure  —  and 
not  too  plausible —  conjecture.  We  have  to  do  with  long 
finished  narratives,  obeying  regular  stanzaic  structure, 
provided  with  rhyme,  and  telling  a  whole  story  —  pretty 
completely  in  older  versions,  more  reducedly  in  the  later. 
To  assume  that  ignorant  uneducated  people  composed 
these,  or  their  archetypes,  having  the  power  to  do  so  just 
because  they  were  ignorant  and  uneducated,  finds  no  sup- 
port in  the  probabilities.  There  is  strong  doubt  that  a 
"  choral  throng,  with  improvising  singers,  is  not  the 
chance  refuge,  but  rather  the  certain  origin,  of  the  bal- 
lad as  a  poetic  form."  There  is  still  stronger  doubt  of  the 
"  acknowledged  aptitude  of  the  older  peasant  for  impro- 
visation and  spontaneous  narrative  song,"  or  of  a  state- 
ment like  this :  "  There  can  be  no  question,  then,  of  the 
facts.  Popular  improvisation  at  the  dance  has  been  the 
source  of  certain  traditional  lyric  narratives." 52  The 
following  position  is  somewhat  qualified  from  the  preced- 
ing but  it,  too,  represents  conjecture  rather  than  what  is 
demonstrable :  "  The  characteristic  method  of  ballad 
authorship  is  improvisation  in  the  presence  of  a  sympa- 
thetic company  which  may  even,  at  times,  participate  in 

are  given  on  pp.  206-242  of  The  Hako.     But  these  ritual  songs  are 
not  improvisations ;  nor  are  they  of  "  communal  "  rendering. 

52  Gummere,  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature,  n,  p.  456 ; 
Old  English  Ballads,  p.  312;   The  Popular  Ballad,  p.  25. 


IMPROVISATION  AND  FOLK-SONG      155 

the  process.  Such  a  description  is  in  general  warranted 
by  the  evidence  though  it  cannot  be  proved  for  any  of 
the  English  and  Scottish  popular  ballads."  53  The  author 
"  belonged  to  the  folk,  derived  his  material  from  popular 
sources,  made  his  ballad  under  the  inherited  influence  of 
the  manner  described,  and  gave  it  to  the  folk  as  soon  as 
he  had  made  it." 

We  should  remind  ourselves  that  in  our  aay  attempts 
to  solve  the  problems  of  literary  history  proceed  from  the 
concrete  to  the  theoretical.  The  methods  of  the  transcen- 
dentalist  yield  to  those  of  the  scientist,  who  first  gathers 
then  scrutinizes  his  data.  Certainly  this  is  a  better 
method  than  that  which  generalizes  from  an  "  inner 
light,"  looking  about  for  whatever  evidence  may  be  found 
by  way  of  support.  A  wise  thing  to  do  before  reaching 

83  Kittredge,  Introduction  to  English  and  Scottish  Ballads,  p.  xvii. 

This  view  associating  the  origin  of  the  English  and  Scottish 
ballads  with  the  gathered  folk-throng  and  improvisation  has  many 
adherents.  It  is  the  view  to  be  found  in  our  best  known  and  most 
accessible  books  treating  the  ballads,  like  Professor  Gummere's  The 
Beginnings  of  Poetry,  The  Popular  Ballad,  and  Democracy  and 
Poetry,  and  it  appears  in  the  Cambridge  History  of  English  Litera- 
ture and  in  the  Kittredge  and  Sargent  one-volume  edition  of  the 
Child  ballads,  and  it  seems  to  have  been  accepted  by  F.  E.  Bryant, 
A  History  of  English  Balladry,  1913.  Besides  the  many  authors 
holding  it  who  have  been  mentioned  in  preceding  pages,  it  has  the 
support  of  Professor  G.  M.  Miller,  Dramatic  Elements  in  the  Popu- 
lar Ballads,  University  of  Cincinnati  Studies  in  English  (1905), 
and  apparently  of  Professor  C.  Alphonso  Smith,  Ballads  Surviving  in 
the  United  States,  The  Musical  Quarterly,  n,  116.  There  are  dis- 
senters from  it  here  and  there,  whose  work  may  be  found  in  special 
articles.  Among  them  was  W.  W.  Newell,  the  distinguished  folk- 
lorist  (see  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  13,  p.  113).  But 
the  theory  of  communal  origin  and  emergence,  with  its  emphasis  on 
improvisation,  retains  the  strategic  position  in  literary  histories 
and  in  special  school  editions  of  the  ballads. 


156  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

conclusions  concerning  the  processes  of  the  past,  is  to  make 
sure  what  is  true  of  the  present ;  to  look  for  parallel  con- 
temporary material  and  to  keep  it  in  mind  when  examin- 
ing the  older.  If  the  past  often  casts  light  upon  the  pres- 
ent, the  present,  in  its  turn,  may  often  cast  light  upon  the 
past. 

Surely  then  it  is  advisable,  in  handling  problems  of 
origin,  to  keep  an  eye  upon  the  diffusion  and  establish- 
ment of  types,  in  the  folk-song  of  our  own  time,  holding 
in  mind  changes  and  parallels  in  conditions,  especially  as 
compared  with  those  surrounding  the  folk  ballads  of  older 
times.  Yet  this  has  not  been  a  customary  angle  of  ap- 
proach in  discussions  of  the  English  and  Scottish  popular 
ballads.  When  considering  a  lyric  type  that  arose  in  Eng- 
land in  the  later-  middle  ages,  critics  should  give  it  not  less 
but  rather  greater  weight  than  argument  from  the  anthro- 
pological beginnings  of  poetry,  which  of  late  years  has 
monopolized  the  foreground  of  discussion.  The  subjects, 
the  authorship  and  composition  of  primitive  song,  and 
the  authorship  and  composition  of  the  English  and  Scot- 
tish popular  ballads  are  distinct ;  and,  for  both,  the  affirma- 
tion of  characteristic  origin  by  communal  improvisation 
should  no  longer  be  made. 

Of  late  years  a  considerable  number  of  pieces  composed 
by  groups  of  unlearned  people  whose  community  life  so- 
cialized their  thinking  have  been  made  available  to  stu- 
dents of  folk  song,  namely  American  cowboy  and  lumber- 
man songs,  and  negro  spirituals.  It  is  hardly  likely  that 
human  ability  has  fallen  greatly  since  the  middle  ages; 
yet  when  we  see  what  is  the  best  that  communal  compo- 
sition can  achieve  now,  and  are  asked  to  believe  what  it 
created  some  centuries  ago,  the  discrepancy  becomes  un- 


IMPKOVISATION  AND  FOLK-SONG      157 

believable.  The  American  pieces  which,  according  to 
their  collectors,  have  been  communally  composed,  or  at 
least  emerged  from  the  ignorant  and  unlettered  in  isolated 
regions,  afford  ample  testimony  in  style,  structure,  qual- 
ity, and  technique  to  the  fact  that  the  English  and  Scot- 
tish popular  ballads  could  not  have  been  so  composed,  nor 
their  type  so  established.  In  general,  real  communalis- 
tic  or  popular  poetry,  as  we  can  place  the  finger  on  it, 
composed  in  the  collaborating  manner  emphasized  by 
Professor  Gummere  and  Professor  Kittredge,  is  crude, 
structureless,  incoherent,  and  lacking  in  striking  and  mem- 
orable qualities.54  Popular  improvisations  are  too  lack- 
ing in  cohesion  and  in  effective  qualities,  to  retain  identity 
or  to  achieve  vitality  unless  in  stray  instances,  scattered 
in  time  and  place ;  they  are  too  characterless  to  be  capable 
of  developing  into  a  literary  type  like  the  English  and 
Scottish  ballads.  There  are  now  many  collections  of 
American  folk-song,  made  in  many  States.  In  these  col- 
lections, the  pieces  of  memorable  quality  are  exactly  those 
for  which  folk-composition  can  not  be  claimed.  The  few 
rough  improvisations  which  we  can  identify  as  emerging 
from  the  folk  themselves  —  which  we  actually  know  to 
be  the  work  of  unlettered  individuals  or  throngs  —  are 
those  farthest  from  the  Child  ballads  in  their  general 

M  For  material  in  support  of  these  generalizations,  see  the  discus- 
sion of  Balladry  in  America,  especially  the  section  entitled  "The 
Southwestern  Cowboy  Songs  and  the  English  and  Scottish  Ballads." 
Compare  further  the  improvisations  of  our  own  fast-dying-out  ring 
games  and  play  party  songs  (for  references  see  pp.  61,  64),  and  of 
children's  songs.  For  the  Old  World  compare  the  improvisations 
of  Faroe  Island  fishermen,  of  Russian  cigarette  girls,  of  the  South 
German  SchnadaMpfln,  Bohme  Geschichte  des  Tanzes,  p.  239,  and 
of  labor  songa,  BUcher,  Arbeit  und  Rhythmus,  pp.  304,  327,  etc. 


158  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

characteristics  and  in  their  worth  as  poetry.55.  Nor  is 
there  a  single  instance  of  such  an  improvisation  develop- 
ing into  a  good  piece,  or  bec'oming,  as  time  goes  on,  any- 
thing like  a  Child  ballad,  unless  by  direct  assimilation  of 
passages  from  one  of  the  latter.  Yet  they  emerged  from 
throngs  no  less  homogeneous,  perhaps  more  homogeneous 
than  the  mediaeval  peasants  and  villagers. 

The  most  homogeneous  groups  in  the  world  are  doubt- 
less the  military  groups;  yet  war  and  march  songs  are  al- 
ways appropriated,  never  composed  by  the  soldiers.  The 
examples  afforded  by  the  war  for  the  Union  are  still  famil- 
iar ;  the  favorite  song  developed  by  the  Cuban  war  56  was 
adapted  from  a  French-Creole  song;  and  we  know  the 
origin  of  the  songs  popular  among  the  soldiers  in  the 
European  war.  If  the  "  homogeneity "  theory  has  any 
value,  it  ought  to  find  illustrations  in  army  life.  And  do 
prisoners  in  stripes  and  lock  step  ever  invent  songs? 
Granting  the  "  communal  conditions  "  theory,  our  peni- 
tentiaries should  be  veritable  fountains  of  song  and  bal- 
ladry. As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  most  famous  of  prison 
ballads  is  the  masterpiece  of  an  accomplished  poet, — 
Wilde's  "  Ballad  of  Eeading  Gaol." 

Another  thing  shown  by  modern  collections  of  folk- 
song is  that  the  songs  preserved  among  the  folk  are  nearly 
certain  not  to  be  those  composed  by  them.  Those  they 
make  themselves  are  just  about  the  first  to  die.57  Usu- 

55  It  is  obvious  that  negro  songs  do  not  tend  to  assume  a  narrative 
type  but  retrograde  to  a  simple  repetition  of  phrases. 

s«  Joseph  T.  Miles,  "A  Hot  Time  in  the  Old  Town  Tonight." 
"  Hail,  Hail,  the  Gang's  All  Here,"  popular  before  and  during  the 
European  war,  utilizes  for  its  melody  the  Pirates  Chorus,  from  Sir 
Arthur  Sullivan's  The  Pirates  of  Penzance. 

BT  Illustration  may  be  drawn  also  from  the  improvisations  at  the 


IMPROVISATION  AND  FOLK-SONG      159 

ally  some  special  impetus,  some  cause  for  persistence  or 
popularity,  is  to  be  detected  for  the  pieces  that  live.  And 
the  striking  or  memorable  qualities,  or  the  special  mode  of 
diffusion,  necessary  to  bring  vitality  are  just  what  the 
genuine  "  communal  "  folk-pieces  do  not  and  cannot  have. 
Most  improvised  poetry  dies  with  the  occasion  that  brought 
it  forth.  This  is  by  and  large  a  dependable  generaliza- 
tion. What  the  folk  improvises  is  typically  flat  and  in- 
ferior and  has  no  such  vitality  as  the  material  assimilated 
and  preserved  by  the  folk  from  other  sources. 

The  test  of  subject-matter  should  also  be  taken  into  ac- 
count, when  we  are  considering  the  likelihood  that  some 
process  akin  to  the  processes  of  primitive  choral  song  and 
dance  —  continued  through  untold  centuries  among  vil- 
lagers and  peasants  —  produced  the  Child  ballads.  The 
real  communal  pieces,  as  we  can  identify  them,  deal  with 
the  life  and  the  interests  of  the  people  who  compose  them. 
They  do  not  occupy  themselves  with  the  stories  and  the 
lives  of  the  class  above  them.  The  cowboy  pieces  deal 
with  cattle  trails,  barrooms,  broncho  riding,  not  with  the 
lives  of  ranch-owners  and  employers;  and  a  negro  piece 
deals  with  the  boll  weevil,  not  with  the  adventures  of  the 
owners  of  plantations.  Songs  well-attested  as  emerg- 
ing from  the  laboring  folk  throngs  of  the  Old-World  deal 

old  time  revival  meetings,  where  "  a  good  leader  could  keep  a  song 
going  among  a  congregation  or  a  happy  group  of  vocalists,  impro- 
vising a  new  start  line  after  every  stop  until  his  memory  or  in- 
vention gave  out."  See  The  Story  of  Hymns  and  Tunes,  by  Theron 
Brown  and  Hezekiah  Butterworth  (1896),  chapter  vii  ("Old  Revival 
Hymns"),  pp.  262-297.  But  these  improvisations  did  not  live  or 
produce  new  hymns.  The  material  of  the  revival  hymns  and  the 
mannerisms  of  the  singing,  especially  of  improvisation  and  pro- 
traction, had  strong  influence  on  negro  folk-song,  indeed  afforded  the 
background  for  the  negro  "  spirituals."  See  pp.  129-132. 


160  THE  BALLAD  STYLE 

with  the  interests  of  factory  life  or  agricultural  life,  or 
with  the  adventures  of  those  of  the  social  class  singing  or 
composing  the  songs.  The  improvisations  of  folk  singers 
are  usually  personal,  satirical,  humorous,  or  vituperations, 
are  lampoons  and  the  like,  and  they  grow  out  of  the  imme- 
diate interests  or  level  of  life  or  the  latest  occurrence 
among  the  singers.  They  are  not  often  sentimental  and 
are  not  heroic,  narrative,  or  historical.  What  then  must 
we  think  of  the  English  and  Scottish  ballads,  if  the  people 
composed  them  ?  Their  themes  are  not  at  all  of  the  char- 
acter to  be  expected.  They  are  not  invariably  on  the 
work,  or  on  episodes  in  the  life  of  the  ignorant  and  lowly. 
Would  they  have  had  so  great  vitality  or  have  won  such 
currency  if  they  had  dealt  with  laborers,  ploughmen, 
spinners,  peasants,  common  soldiers,  rather  than  with 
aristocrats  ?  The  typical  figures  in  the  ballads  are  kings 
and  princesses,  knights  and  ladies, —  King  Estmere, 
Young  Beichan,  Young  Hunting,  Lord  Randal,  Earl 
Brand,  Edward,  Sir  Patrick  Spens,  Edom  o'Gordon,  Lord 
Thomas  and  Fair  Annet,  Lady  Maisry,  Proud  Lady  Mar- 
garet, or  leaders  like  the  Percy  and  the  Douglas.  We 
learn  next  to  nothing  concerning  the  humbler  classes  from 
them ;  less  than  from  Froissart's  Chronicles,  far  less  than 
from  Chaucer.  The  life  is  not  that  of  the  hut  or  the 
village,  but  that  of  the  bower  and  the  hall.  Nor  is  the 
language  parallel  to  that  of  the  cowboy  and  negro  pieces. 
It  has  touches  of  professionalism,  stock  poetic  formulae, 
alliteration,  often  metrical  sophistication.  It  is  not 
rough,  flat,  crude,  in  the  earlier  and  undegenerated  ver- 
sions; instead  there  is  much  that  is  poetic,  telling,  beau- 
tiful. It  is  for  its  time  much  nearer  the  poetry  coming 
from  professional  hands  than  might  be  expected  from  me- 


IMPROVISATION  AND  FOLK-SONG      161 

diseval  counterparts  of  The  Old  Chisholm  Trail  and  The 
Boll  Weevil.58  No  doubt  there  existed  analogues  of  these 
pieces,  i  .e.,  songs  which  were  sung  by  and  were  the  crea- 
tion of  ignorant  and  unlettered  villagers;  but  we  may  be 
certain  that  these  mediaeval  analogues  were  not  the  Child 
ballads. 

The  English  and  Scottish  ballads  should  no  longer  be 
inevitably  related  to  primitive  singing  and  dancing 
throngs,  improvising  and  collaborating.  We  can  not  look 
upon  creations  of  such  length,  structure,  coherence,  finish, 
artistic  value,  adequacy  of  expression,  as  emerging  from 
the  communal  improvisation  of  simple  uneducated  folk- 
throngs.  This  view  might  serve  so  long  as  we  had  no 
clear  evidence  before  us  as  to  the  kind  of  thing  that  the 
improvising  folk-muse  is  able  to  create.  When  we  see 
what  is  the  best  the  latter  can  do,  under  no  less  favorable 
conditions,  at  the  present  time,  we  remain  skeptical  as  to 
the  power  of  the  mediaeval  rustics  and  villagers.  The 
mere  fact  that  the  mediaeval  throngs  are  supposed  by 
many  scholars  to  have  danced  while  they  sung,  whereas 
modern  cowboys,  lumbermen,  ranchmen,  or  negroes  do  not, 
should  not  have  endowed  the  mediaeval  muse  with  such 
striking  superiority  of  product. 

68  See  Chapter  vi,  iii. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  ENGLISH  BALLADS  AND  THE  CHURCH 

Many  origins  have  been  suggested  for  the  type  of  nar- 
rative song  appearing  in  the  English  and  Scottish  tradi- 
tional ballads:  minstrel  genesis,  origin  in  the  dance,  im- 
provisations of  mediaeval  peasant  communes,  or  descent 
from  the  dance  songs  of  primitive  peoples.  The  hypothe- 
sis of  minstrel  origin  was  that  first  to  be  advanced  and  it 
has  always  retained  supporters.  There  remains  a  possi- 
bility not  yet  brought  forward  which  deserves  to  be  pre- 
sented for  what  it  is  worth,  since  the  problem,  though  it 
may  be  insoluble,  has  its  attraction  for  critic  and  student. 
We  have  but  meager  knowledge  of  the  ballad  melodies  of 
pre-Elizabethan  days,  and  we  can  get  but  little  farther 
with  the  study  of  the  ballads  by  way  of  research  into 
mediaeval  music.  Moreover  the  earliest  texts  remaining 
to  us  seem  to  have  been  meant  for  recital  rather  than  for 
singing.  In  general,  the  melodies  of  ballads  are  more 
shifting,  less  dependable,  than  are  the  texts,  in  the  bense 
of  the  plots  and  the  characters  which  the  texts  present. 
This  is  true  of  contemporary  folk-songs  and  it  was  proba- 
bly true  earlier.  One  text  may  be  sung  to  a  variety  of  aira 
or  one  air  may  serve  for  many  texts.  Nor  can  we  get 
much  farther  with  the  study  of  ballads  by  way  of  the 
minstrels.  They  have  had  much  attention  already;  and 
nothing  has  ever  been  brought  out  really  barring  them 

162 


THE  EAKLIEST  BALLAD  TEXTS         163 

from  major  responsibility  for  ballad  creation  and  diffusion 
in  the  earlier  periods.  Again,  we  can  get  but  little  farther 
by  studying  the  mediaeval  dance,  or  folk-improvisations,  or 
the  dance  songs  of  primitive  peoples,  all  of  which  have 
been  associated  with  the  Child  ballads  to  an  exaggerated 
degree.  It  is  time  to  try  a  new  angle  of  approach  —  the 
last  remaining  —  although  the  hypothesis  which  it  sug- 
gests is  far  removed  from  the  theory  of  genesis  enjoying 
the  greatest  acceptance  at  the  present  time,  and  although 
it  —  like  its  predecessors  —  may  not  take  us  very  far. 

It  has  been  customary  among  theorizers  completely  to 
discard  the  chronological  order  of  the  ballad  texts  remain- 
ing to  us,  and  to  argue  toward  origin  and  development 
from  a  type  of  ballad  like  Lord  Randal  and  Edward,  of 
comparatively  late  appearance,  when  such  reversal  of 
chronology  best  suited  the  theory  to  be  advanced.  The 
contrary  procedure,  theorizing  from  the  facts  of  chronol- 
ogy, is  the  logical  one.  If  the  ballad  texts  which  are  oldest 
are  given  attention  and  emphasis,  actual  fact  adhered  to 
and  conjecture  omitted,  can  anything  distinctive  be 
reached?  This  method  of  approach  is  one  to  which  the 
ballads  have  never  been  subjected  in  more  than  a  cursory 
way.  If  it  is  tried,  in  what  direction  does  it  lead? 

I   THE  EARLIEST  BALLAD  TEXTS 

If  we  accept  the  body  of  English  and  Scottish  ballad 
material  as  defined  by  Professor  F.  J.  Child,  the  oldest 
ballad  texts  existing  have  to  do  rather  strikingly  with 
the  church.  They  have  unmistakably  an  ecclesiastical 
stamp,  and  sound  like  an  attempt  to  popularize  Biblical 
history  or  legend.  By  our  oldest  texts  are  meant  those 


to  be  found  in  early  manuscripts  of  established  date,  not 
texts  recovered  from  an  oral  source  or  found  in  manu- 
scripts of  later  centuries.1  The  earliest  remaining  Eng- 
lish ballad  is  conceded  to  be  the  Judas,  a  narrative  of  36 
lines  in  rhyming  couplets,  which  endows  him  with  a  wicked 
sister,  refers  to  his  betrayal  of  Christ  for  thirty  pieces  of 
silver,  and  reflects  some  of  the  curiosities  of  mediaeval 
legend  concerning  him.2  The  manuscript  preserving  it, 
in  the  library  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  is  certainly 
of  the  thirteenth  century.  The  same  manuscript  contains 
A  Ballad  of  the  Twelfth  Day,  a  ballad  of  the  same  general 
nature  as  the  Judas  and  written  in  the  same  hand.3  It 
has  probably  escaped  general  recognition  as  a  ballad  be- 
cause composed  in  monorhyme  quatrains,  a  more  elaborate 
form,  instead  of  in  the  couplets  of  the  Judas. 

From  the  fifteenth  century  comes  Inter  Diabolus  et 
Virgo,  ancestor  of  many  riddling  ballads,  preserved  in  the 
Bodleian  library  at  Oxford,  a  piece  in  which  the  devil  is 
worsted  by  a  clever  and  devout  maiden.  The  questions 
and  answers  reach  their  climax  in  "  God's  flesh  is  better 
than  bread  "  and  "  Jesus  is  richer  than  the  King."  Like- 
wise from  the  fifteenth  century  is  St.  Stephen  and  Herod, 
in  the  Sloane  manuscript  of  about  the  middle  of  the1  cen- 
tury, which  incorporates  the  widespread  mediseval  legend 
of  the  cock  crowing  from  the  dish  Cristus  naius  est,  a  leg- 

1  For  the  dating  of  ballad  texts,  see  E.  Fliigel,  Zur  Chronologic 
der  englischen  Balladen,  Anglia,  vol.  xxi,  (1899),  pp.  312  ff. 

2  Compare  P.  F.  Baum,  "  The  English  Ballad  of  Judas  Iscariot," 
Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America,  vol. 
xxxi  (1916),  p.  181,  and  "The  Mediaeval  Legend  of  Judas  Iscariot," 
ibid.,   p.   481. 

s  Printed,  with  editorial  notes?  by  W.  W.  Greg,  The  Modern  Lan- 
guage Review,  voh  vnr,  p.  64,  and  vol.  ix    (1913),  p.  235. 


THE  EARLIEST  BALLAD  TEXTS         165 

end  which  appears  also  in  the  well-known  carol  or  re- 
ligious ballad,  The  Carnal  and  the  Crane.  Alsl  yod  on  ay 
Mounday,  in  8-line  stanzas,  preserved  in  a  fourteenth- 
century  manuscript  in  the  Cotton  collection,  is  hardly  a 
ballad,  but  a  poem  to  which  the  later  ballad,  The  Wee  Wee 
Man,  may  be  related.  It  is  not  admitted  among  ballads 
by  Professor  Child.  Thomas  Rymer  is  generally  ac- 
counted old,  since  its  hero  is  Thomas  of  Erceldoune;  we 
do  not  have  it,  however,  in  early  form,  but  from  the  eight- 
eenth century,  and  there  is  no  determining  the  time  of  its 
composition.  There  is  a  fifteenth-century  poem,  in  bal- 
lad stanza,  Thomas  of  Erseldoune,  preserved  in  the  Thorn- 
ton manuscript,  but  it  is  usually  classified  as  a  romance  or 
a  romantic  poem,  never  as  a  ballad.  The  existing  ballad, 
on  the  same  theme,  is  probably  not  a  legacy  from  the 
romance  but  an  independent  creation  telling  the  same 
story.  Possibly  it  is  based  on  the  romance.  Among 
earlier  texts  are  left,  then,  only  a  few  greenwood  and 
outlaw  pieces  from  no  farther  back  than  the  middle  of  the 
fifteenth  century.  The  first  is  Robin  and  Gandeleynt  a 
greenwood  ballad  from  about  1450,  which  opens  in  the 
reporter's  manner  of  so  many  of  the  chansons  d'aventure  : 

I  herde  the  carpynge  of  a  clerk 
Al  at  yone  wodes  ende. 

Others  are  Robin  Hood  and  the  Monk  (which  has  a  rev- 
erdi  opening),  Robin  Hood  and  the  Potter  of  about  1500, 
and  A  Gest  of  Robin  Hood  of  perhaps  a  few  years  later. 
There  were  earlier  songs  and  rhymes,  just  as  there  were 
later  songs  and  rhymes  of  Robin  Hood,4  but  whether  he 
was  celebrated  in  the  ballad  manner  prior  to  the  fifteenth 
*  Like  the  "  rhymes  "  of  Robin  Hood  mentioned  in  Piers  Plowman. 


166     ENGLISH  BALLADS  AND  THE  CHURCH 

century  we  do  not  know.5  The  ecclesiastical  pieces  are  in 
the  couplet  form  usually  recognized  by  scholars  as  the 
older  for  ballads,  while  Robin  and  Gandelyn  and  the  Robin 
Hood  pieces  are  in  the  familiar  four-line  stanza  which  be- 
came the  staple  ballad  stanza.  We  should,  very  likely,  go 
somewhat  earlier  than  the  thirteenth-century  Judas  for  the 
genesis  of  the  lyric  type  which  it  represents ;  but  there  is 
no  doubt  that,  in  respect  to  chronological  appearance,  our 
oldest  ballads  deal  not  with  themes  of  love,  romance,  do- 
mestic tragedy,  adventure,  chronicle,  or  even  outlawry  — 
though  the  latter  come  as  early  as  the  fifteenth  century  — 
but  instead  are  strikingly  ecclesiastical. 

It  need  hardly  be  pointed  out  that  this  scrutiny  is  a 
logical  one  to  make,  though  it  would  be  idle  to  think  its 
results  decisive.  It  seems  to  suggest  that  the  ballad  as  a 
poetic  type,  a  story  given  in  simple  lyrical  or  singable 
form,  may  have  received  impetus  fromj  or  have  been 
evolved  through  the  desire  to  popularize  a.  scriptural  story 
or  legend.  In  other  words,  it  is  as.  though  the  ballad,  like 
the  religious  carols  and  the  miracle  plays-  and  a  great  mass 
of  ecclesiastical  lyrics  and  narrative  poetry,  might  be  a 

5  The  music  of  some  of  the  Robin  Hood  songs,  sometimes  at  least, 
seems  to  have  been  church  music,  or  music  of  the  same  type.  See  a 
passage  on  "  pryksong "  in  the  Interlude  of  The  Four  Elements, 
dated  by  Schelling  about  1517.  (Halliwell  edition,  Percy  Society 
Publications,  1848,  pp.  50,  51.)  See  also  pricksong  in  The  Oxford 
Dictionary.  There  should  be  nothing  surprising  in  the  singing  of 
ballads  to  music  of  ecclesiastical  type,  if  such  was  the  case.  In  con- 
temporary folk-song,  hymn  tunes  are  constantly  utilized,  in  the 
United  States  and  elsewhere  —  as  in  the  Faroe  Islands,  according  to 
Thuren.  The  words  of  John  Brown,  in  the  period  of  the  Civil  War, 
were  put  together  to  a  popular  Methodist  camp-meeting  tune.  Jean 
Beck  (La  Musique  d&s  Troubadours,  Paris,  1910,  pp.  19-24)  leans  to 
the  opinion  that  the  source  of  troubadour  music,  hence  of  Romance 
lyric  poetry  in  general,  is  to  be  found  in  the  music  of  the  church. 


THE  EARLIEST  BALLAD  TEXTS         167 

part  of  that  great  mediaeval  movement  to  popularize  for 
edifying  reasons  biblical  characters  and  tales,  a  movement 
having  its  first  impulse  in  the  festival  occasions  of  the 
church.  Then,  again  like  the  drama,  it  passes  from  ec- 
clesiastical hands,  with  edification  the  purpose,  into  secu- 
lar hands,  with  the  underlying  purpose  of  entertainment. 
To  follow  farther  the  possibilities,  once  the  type  was  popu- 
larized and  mainly  in  the  hands  of  the  minstrels,  as  the 
drama  passed  into  the  control  of  the  guilds,  a  variety  of 
material  was  assimilated,  and  (still  like  the  drama)  the 
religious  material,  having  historically  initial  place,  be- 
came submerged  and  ultimately  well-nigh  lost  to  view. 
The  minstrels  of  great  houses  sang  of  the  martial  deeds 
of  those  houses,  as  of  the  Percys,  the  Stanleys,  the  How- 
ards.6 Popular  outlaws  were  celebrated,  though  in  a 
somewhat  upper-class  way,  in  the  Robin  Hood  pieces,  in 
the  period  when  outlaws  were  popular  figures  in  litera- 
ture; while  for  the  entertainment  of  aristocratic  mixed 
audiences,  for  which  so  many  of  the  literary  types  of  the 
Middle  Ages  were  developed,  all  kinds  of  material,  ro- 
mantic and  legendary  and  the  like,  were  utilized.  In  its 
period  of  full  development,  the  ballad  shades  off  into 
many  types,  the  epic  chanson  in  Robin  Hood,  the  allegory 
in  The  Rose  of  England,  the  verse  chronicle  in  The  Battle 
of  Otterbourne,  the  romance  in  Sir  Aldingar  and  Earl 
Brand,  the  aube  in  The  Gray  Cock,  the  lament  in  Johnny 
Campbell,  the  carol  in  The  Cherry  Tree  Carol,  and  theo- 
logical discussion  in  verse  in  The  Carnal  and  the  Crane.7 

«  In  The  Hunting  of  the  Cheviot;  the  Rose  of  England  and  Plod- 
den  Field;  Sir  Andrew  Barton. 

1 0ther  "  literary "  features  of  the  ballads,  the  popular  spring 
morning  (reverdi)  opening  of  the  outlaw  pieces  and  the  frequent 


168     ENGLISH  BALLADS  AND  THE  CHURCH 

The  ecclesiastics  and  the  minstrels,  between  them,  were 
responsible  for  all  or  nearly  all  the  new  types  of  mediaeval 
poetry,  and  (possibly  enough)  for  the  ballads  too.8  An- 
other illustration  of  the  passing  of  an  ecclesiastical  mode 
into  secular  hands,  is  the  Mary  worship  of  the  church 
which  was  secularized  in  Provengal  poetry  and  crossed  to 
England  in  the  woman  worship  of  the  chivalric  code,  re- 
flected in  the  romances  and  the  romantic  lyrics. 

It  is  certain  that  the  earliest  ballad  texts  do  not  sound 
as  though  they  ever  had  any  connection  with  the  dance. 
Religious  material  sometimes  appeared  in  mediaeval  dance 

chanson  d'aventure  opening,  were  mentioned  in  connection  with  the 
discussion  of  fifteenth-century  texts. 

s  If  ecclesiastical  ballads  are  the  earliest  ballads,  The  Carnal  and 
the  Crane,  a  theological  discussion  between  birds  of  the  type  liked  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  in  which  the  Crane  instructs  her  interrogator  on 
the  childhood  and  life  of  Jesus  and  in  several  apocryphal  incidents, 
might  be  a  ballad  of  earlier  type  than  Lord  Randal.  Though  itself 
first  recorded  in  an  eighteenth-century  text,  this  ballad-carol  has 
unmistakably  early  affiliations,  as  with  St.  Stephen  and  Herod,  and 
early  legendary  matter  concerning  Christ.  And  the  ballads  Dives 
and  Lazarus,  traceable  to  the  sixteenth  century,  The  Maid  and  the 
Palmer  of  the  Percy  Manuscript,  and  Brown  Robin's  Confession  of 
Buchan's  collection,  might  represent  an  older  type  of  material  than 
Edward  or  Babylon.  But  this  is  purely  speculative,  and  of  no  value 
as  argument. 

The  ballad,  Hugh  of  Lincoln,  or  The  Jew's  Daughter,  which  still 
has  vitality,  though  its  earliest  texts  come  from  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  takes  us  back  in  its  tragic  story  and  its  dis- 
covery of  murder  by  miracle  to  the  thirteenth  century.  The  story 
of  Hugh,  of  Lincoln,  first  appears  in  The  Annals  of  Waverley,  1255, 
and  in  Matthew  of  Paris.  It  has  parallels  in  the  twelfth  century 
and  a  cognate  in  Chaucer's  The  Prioresse's  Tale.  Hugh  of  Lincoln 
refers  us  to  an  old  story  of  definite  date  more  certainly  than  do 
most  of  the  ballads.  It  deserves  mention  among  those  exhibiting, 
it  would  appear,  material  of  older  type  than  the  outlaw,  chronicle, 
or  romantic  ballads. 


THE  EARLIEST  BALLAD  TEXTS         169 

songs,  but  it  was  the  rarest  of  the  many  types  of  material 
found  in  such  songs.9  There  are  traces  of  sporadic  con- 
nection between  the  church  and  liturgical  dancing  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  but  established  or  widespread  liturgical 
dancing  is  extremely  doubtful.  Testimonies  are  too  abun- 
dant as  to  the  stand  taken  by  the  mediaeval  church  against 
dancing,  whether  by  professional  dancers  or  by  the  folk. 
The  application  of  the  name  "  ballad,"  which  means 
dance  song,  to  the  traditional  lyric-epic  did  not  come  in  a 
specific  way  until  the  eighteenth  century;  hence  an  ety- 
mological argument  from  the  name,  as  indicating  a  dance 
origin  for  the  species,  should  have  no  weight.  A  "  bal- 
lad "  in  the  fourteenth  century  was  usually  the  artificial 
species  which  we  now  call  the  "  ballade,"  a  species  which 
is  to  be  associated  with  the  dance.  The  name  which  we 
have  fixed  upon  for  them  is  perhaps  responsible  for  our 
long  association  of  the  English  and  Scottish  type  with  the 
dance,  and  for  our  refusal  to  look  elsewhere  for  its  genesis. 
In  a  manner  exactly  parallel,  the  word  carol  was  applied 
late  to  religious  songs  of  the  Nativity  and  of  Christmas 
(French  noels).  When  the  word  carol  first  appeared  in 
English  it  meant  a  secular  dance  song  of  spring  and  love. 
We  name  religious  songs  of  Christmas  by  a  word  that  first 
meant  dance  song,  as  we  do  our  traditional  lyric-epics. 
But  for  the  definite  suggestion  of  their  name,  it  might 
seem  less  surprising  that  our  earliest  ballad  texts  associate 
themselves  with  biblical  edification,  not  with  dancing 
throngs  on  the  village  green. 

There  are  no  earlier  ballad  documents  in  other  coun- 
tries than  in  England,  so  that  the  chronology  of  the  bal- 
lad's appearance  is  the  only  certain  test  that  we  have  con- 

»B6hme,  Geschichte  dea  Tames  (1888),  pp.  244  ff. 


1YO     ENGLISH  BALLADS  AND  THE  CHURCH 

cerning  the  time  of  composition  of  a  ballad  text.  The  age 
of  the  story  or  theme  of  a  hallad  and  the  age  of  the  ballad 
itself  may  be  quite  different  matters.  Besides,  not  all 
nations  show  a  liking  for  ballads.  The  South  African 
Dutch  are  said  to  have  folk-tales,  but  no  ballads.  Italian 
folk-song,  except  in  the  extreme  north,  had  no  ballads,  and 
French  folk-song  has  no  such  wealth  of  ballad  poetry  as 
English  has.  Some  parts  of  Spain  have  no  ballads.  The 
Danish  ballads  are  those  most  closely  related  to  the  Eng- 
lish. The  oldest  Danish  manuscript  collection  of  ballads 
comes  from  about  1550,  although  there  are  fragments  of 
ballads  and  references  to  ballads  which  take  us  back  some- 
what earlier.  One  not  very  significant  ballad,  Ridderen  i 
Hjorteham,  is  of  about  1450.  A  systematic  examination 
of  Scandinavian  ballads  from  the  angle  of  approach  of  the 
role  played  by  ecclesiastical  material  or  by  ecclesiastical 
agents  of  composition  and  diffusion,  might  have  some 
bearing  for  or  against  the  conjectures  presented  here ;  but 
probably  it  would  yield  little  or  nothing  decisive.  Also 
to  be  desired  is  an  investigation  of  the  religious  narrative 
lyric  for  Old  French  popular  verse,  since  the  mediaeval 
English  lyric  owes  so  much  to  French  sources. 

The  terminus  a,  quo  for  ballad  origin  must  be  the  be- 
ginning of  the  twelfth  century.  Ballads  of  the  rhyming 
form  of  the  English  and  Scottish  type  cannot  in  origin 
antedate  the  Norman  Conquest.  If  the  Anglo-Saxons  had 
ballads  they  were  of  the  character  of  Old  Teutonic  verse, 
in  some  respects  like  the  Brunanburh  song,  or  the  Battle 
of  Maldon,  or  possibly  like  some  of  the  Charms;  in  any 
case  they  were  not  in  the  rhyming  form  of  the  later  bal- 
lads, the  lyrical  type  which  is  under  discussion  here.  The 
musical  pliability  of  the  lyric  came  from  the  south,  across 


THE  EARLIEST  BALLAD  TEXTS         171 

the  Channel,  modifying  the  stubbornness  of  the  Old  North- 
ern verse  and  its  sameness  of  movement.  Some  old  lore 
may  have  been  handed  on  into  the  rhymed  forms,  old  wine 
passing  into  new  bottles,  but  the  old  song  modes  made 
way  in  general  for  the  newer.  Ballads  of  the  rhyming 
Child  pattern  must  have  arisen,  like  modern  poetry  and 
prosody  in  general,  after  1100.  We  have  one  ballad, 
Judas,  and  posssibly  a  second,  A  Ballad  of  Twelfth  Day, 
from  the  thirteenth  century;  and  in  general  from  1200  on- 
ward much  popular  verse  remains.  It  would  help  if  more 
remained,  but  we  need  be  at  no  loss  as  to  what  was  in  lyri- 
cal currency  or  what  suited  the  popular  taste.  It  will  not 
do  to  assume  that  a  type  of  ballad  verse,  the  Child  type, 
existed  among  the  folk  long  before  verse  of  its  rhyming 
lyrical  pattern,  a  new  mediaeval  type,  makes  its  appearance 
in  the  lyric  in  general.  The  folk  are  more  likely  to  have 
adhered  to  the  old  alliterative  verse  with  its  dual  move- 
ment long  after  it  had  lost  popularity  in  higher  circles 
than  they  are  to  have  invented  new  rhyming  forms  before 
these  appear  from  professional  hands. 

II SOME    BALLAD    AFFILIATIONS 

If  ballad  literature  began  with  the  religious  ballade  of 
the  clericals,  earlier  ballads  might  be  expected  to  show 
affinities  with  miracle  plays  and  various  types  of  scrip- 
tural and  saints'-legend  and  other  theological  matter  in 
verse  and  with  religious  lyrics.  This  they  do  show;  and 
the  resemblances  are  far  stronger  than  they  are  to  secular 
matter  coming  from  the  same  early  periods.  Many  of 
our  existing  Child  ballads  are  on  the  border  line  between 
ballads  and  carols  (French  woe'Zs),  like  The  Bitter  Withy, 


172     ENGLISH  BALLADS  AND  THE  CHUKCH 

The  Holy  Well,  The  Cherry-Tree  Carol,  The  Carnal  and 
the  Crane,  so  that  they  appear  in  illustrative  collections 
of  both  types  of  verse.  They  are  easily  accessible  in  col- 
lections of  both  ballads  and  carols,  are  included  in  the 
Child  collection,  and  they  need  not  be  reproduced  here. 
They  deserve  either  classification  and  make  clear  that  the 
ballad  and  the  religious  carol  may  be  related  lorms. 
There  is  also  obvious  relationship  to  the  miracle  plays  and 
their  cognates.  The  opening  and  the  end  of  the  thir- 
teenth-century Harrowing  of  Hell 10  exhibit  ballad-like 
stanzas :  — 

Alle  herkneth  to  me  nou, 

A  strif  wolle  y  tellen  ou 

of  ihesu  ant  of  sathan, 

tho  ihesu  wes  to  helle  ygan  .  .  . 

in  godhed  tok  he  then  way 
that  to  helle  gates  lay. 
The  he  com  there  tho  seide  he 
asse  y  shal  nouthe  telle  the. 

The  Brome  Abraham  and  Isaac  is  often  suggestive  of  the 
ballad  manner.  It  is  familiar,  and  space  need  not  be 
given  to  quotation  from  it.  The  ballads  also  show  affini- 
ties to  scriptural  and  saints'-legend  matter  in  verse  of  nar- 
rative type.11 

10  Ed.  all  versions,  W.  H.  Hulme,  E.  E.  T.  S.,  Extra  Series,  100 
(1907). 

11  Compare  in  The  Minor  Pieces  of  the  Vernon  Manuscript,  vol.  I, 
ed.   Horstmann,   E.   E.    T.    S.,   No.   98    (1892)    The  Miracles  of   Our 
Lady,  p.    138,   The  Saving  of   Crotey  City,   The  Child  Slain  "by   the 
Jews,  A  Jew  Boy  in  an  Oven,  etc.,  the  opening  of   The  Visions  of 
Seynt  Poul  wan  he  was  rapt  into  Paradys,  etc.;   vol.  n,  ed.  Furni- 
vall   (1901),  Susannah,  or  Seemly  Susan,  p.  626;   and  in  the  Sloane 
Manuscript  2593,  /SHf.  Nicholas  and  Three  Maidens  and  Noioel,  Mary 
moder  cum  and  se,  etc.     Also  many  pieces  in'  MS.  Balliol  354. 


SOME  BALLAD  AFFILIATIONS  173 

Among  the  earlier  minstrels,  the  dramatic  instinct 
brought  impersonation  in  which  monologue  and  dialogue 
were  given  dramatically,  by  one  individual,  perhaps  some- 
times in  special  costume.  There  are  religious  pieces  like 
the  thirteenth-century  Harrowing  of  Hell,  or  like  Jud&s 
(it  may  well  be)  or  St.  Stephen  &nd  Herod,  which  suggest 
that  they  were  to  be  given  dramatically.  The  dramatic 
element  is  strong  in  ballads  and  also  in  carols  and  in  many 
religious  poems  intended  to  be  given  for  instruction. 

Most  striking,  however,  is  the  fact  that  in  lyrical  qual- 
ity and  style  12  the  closest  affinities  of  the  ballads  of  the 
pre-Elizabethan  period  seem  to  be  with  carols  and  with 
religious  songs.  It  is  in  manuscripts  containing  religious 

The  religious  tag  stanzas  at  the  end  of  older  ballads  —  often 
dropped  in  later  texts  —  account  for  themselves  better  if  emerging 
from  ecclesiastical  influence  than  if  emerging  from  the  purely  sec- 
ular minstrelsy  condemned  for  its  influence  by  the  church.  Exam- 
ples are  the  endings  of  The  Battle  of  Otterbourne  or  The  Hivnting 
of  the  Cheviot: 

Now  let  us  all  for  the  Perssy  praye 

to  Jhesu  most  of  myght, 
To  bryng  hys  sowlle  to  the  blysse  of  heven. 

for  he  was  a  gentyll  knight. 
Or  — 

Jhesue  Crist  our  balys  bete, 

and  to  the  blys  vs  brynge. 
Thus  was  the  hountyng  of  the  Chivyat; 

God  send  vs  alle  good  endyng. 

But  this  is  uncertain  ground.  Such  passages  appear  in  the  ro- 
mances, as  Sir  Orpheo,  as  well  as  in  sermons,  like  the  old  Kentish 
sermons  of  the  thirteenth  centxiry.  In  the  Danish  ballads,  Steen- 
strup  thinks  these  tag  stanzas  a  sign  of  lateness. 

12  The  influence  of  the  song  of  the  early  church  has  often  been 
pointed  out.  "  The  lyric  art,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say,"  declares 
Rhys,  ".was  in  English  kept  alive  for  nearly  three  centuries  by  the 
hymns  of  the  monks  and  lay  brothers"  (Lyric  Poetry  {1913],  p  19). 


174     ENGLISH  BALLADS  AND  THE  CHURCH 

lyrical  pieces  that  some  of  the  oldest  ballads  and  the  near- 
est approaches  to  ballads  are  found.13  Impose  the  lyrical 
quality  of  some  types  of  carols  upon  a  variety  of  narrative 
themes,  or  situation  themes,  and  the  type  of  ballad  is 
reached  which  emerges  in  such  abundance  in  the  later  six- 
teenth and  earlier  seventeenth  centuries.  The  early 
Tudor  period  was  one  of  great  musical  impulse,  and  the 
singing  of  ballads  to  melodies  might  then  have  won  in 
favor  over  the  older  recital.  Be  this  as  it  may,  it  is  in  the 
sixteenth  century  that  the  ballad  texts  which  remain  to 
us  14  first  assume  the  lyrical  refrains  that  both  the  religious 
and  the  older  secular  carols  exhibited  earlier.  The  Sloane 
manuscript  of  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  is  the 
richest  in  ballads  or  ballad-like  pieces  before  the  Percy 
manuscript,  and  it  contains  mainly  religious  and  moral 
songs,  three  in  Latin,  nearly  one  hundred  with  Latin  re- 
frains, and  numerous  Christmas  carols.  The  earliest  ap- 
proaches to  the  song  manner  of  ballads  which  remain  to 
us  are  ecclesiastical. 

There  is-  lyrical  or  structural  repetition  in  the  ballad 
manner  in  the  early  fourteenth-century  Song  of  the  Incar- 
nation:—  15 

is  The  English  religious  lyric  of  the  Middle  Ages  far  exceeds  in 
quantity  that  of  secular  verse  and  it  appears  much  earlier.  The 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  afford  many  specimens.  That 
many  were  written  in  this  period  is  clear  from  the  number  which 
yet  remain  to  us.  Before  the  thirteenth  century,  most  religious 
lyrics  were  in  Latin. 

i*  With  the  possible  exception  of  Robin  and  Gandeleyn.  I  have 
not  been  able  to  see  the  Harvard  doctorate  thesis  of  J.  H.  Boynton, 
Studies  in  the  English  Ballad  Refrain,  with  a  Collection  of  Ballad 
and  Early  Song  Refrains  (1897),  for  the  thesis  remained  unpub- 
lished. 

is  From  the  Sloane  MS.  2593.     And  compare  A  Song  of  Joseph  a*d 


SOME  BALLAD  AFFILIATIONS  175 

I  syng  of  a  mayden  that  is  makeles; 
kyBg  of  alle  kynges  to  here  sone  che  ches. 

he  cam  also  stylle  ther  his  moder  was, 

as  dew  in  aprylle  that  fallyt  on  the  gras. 

he  cam  also  stylle  to  his  moderes  bowr 
as  dew  in  aprille  that  fallyt  on  the  flour. 

he  cam  also  stylle  ther  his  moder  lay, 

as  dew  in  aprille  that  fallyt  on  the  spray. 

moder  &  maydyn  was  neuer  non  but  che; 
wel  may  swych  a  lady  godes  moder  be. 

There  is  something  of  the  lyrical  quality  of  the  ballads 
in —  16 

Adam  lay  y-boundyn,  boundyn  in  a  bond 

fowr  thousand  wynter  thowt  he  not  to  long 

and  all  was  for  an  appil,  an  appil  that  he  took.  .  .  . 

and  in  carols  like  "  A  new  yer,  a  new  yer,  a  chyld  was  i- 
born,"  and  in  many  others.  And  surely  there  are  close 
ballad  affinities  to  be  found  in  a  song  like  this,  written 
down  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII :  —  17 

Mary  in  a  manuscript  of  the  Advocate's  Library,  Edinburgh,  dated 
1372,  first  printed  by  Professor  Carleton  F.  Brown,  Selections  from 
Old  and  Middle  English  (1918);  also  Lamentacio  Dolorosa  and 
Lullaby  to  the  Infant  Jesus,  first  printed  (from  the  same  manu- 
script) by  Professor  Brown. 

i«  Bernhard  Fehr,  Die  Lieder  der  HS.  Sloane  2593,  Archiv,  vol. 
Cix,  p.  51.  Compare  also  some  of  the  short  religious  pieces  edited 
by  Furnivall,  E.  E.  T.  S.,  vol.  xv  (1866),  as  Christ  Comes,  p.  259, 
from  the  Harleian  MS.  7322. 

IT  MS.  Balliol  354.  Richard  Hill's  Commonplace  Book,  E.  E. 
T.  S.,  Extra  Series  101  (1907).  This  book  contains  many  sacred 
songs  and  carols  and  many  moral,  didactic,  and  historical  pieces  and 


176 

Lully  lulley 
The  faucon  hath  borne  my  make  away. 

He  bare  him  up,  he  bare  him  down, 

He  bare  him  into  an  orchard  brown.    Lully,  etc. 

In  that  orchard  there  was  an  hall, 

Which  was  hanged  with  purpill  and  pall.    Lully,  etc. 

And  in  that  hall  there  was  a  bed, 

It  was  hanged  with  gold  so  red.    Lully,  etc. 

And  in  that  bed  there  lith  a  knight, 

His  woundes  bleding  day  and  night.     Lully,  etc. 

By  that  bedside  kneleth  a  may, 

And  she  wepeth  both  night  and  day.    Lully,  etc. 

And  by  that  bed  side  there  stondeth  a  stone, 
Corpus  Christi  wreten  there  on.    Lully,  etc. 

(Lully  lulley,  lully  lulley 

The  faucon  hath  borne  my  make  away.) 

This  song  with  a  burden  like  a  ballad,  or  like  that  of  a 
Christmas  carol,  was  interpreted  by  Professor  Fliigel  as 
the  story  of  Christ's  Passion,  and  his  interpretation  was 
borne  out  by  a  discovery  of  a  modern  traditional  carol  by 
F.  Sidgwick.18  The  song  is  a  religious  song.  The  ten- 
dency in  criticism  has  been  to  associate  the  ballads  with 
older  heroic  poetry  or  with  romance,  or  with  dance  songs ; 
but  comparison  will  show  that,  in  the  texts  earliest  to  ap- 

a  few  worldly  and  humorous  pieces.  It  abounds  in  approaches  to 
the  ballad  manner. 

is  See  Notes  and  Queries,  1905.  Christ  is  referred  to  again  and 
again  as  a  "  knight "  in  many  religious  songs  from  the  Love  Rune 
of  Thomas  de  Hales  onward. 


SOME  BALLAD  AFFILIATIONS          1Y7 

pear,  a  closer  connection  in  lyrical  quality  and  in  the  use 
of  refrains  and  repetition  is  afforded  by  the  religious  lyrics. 
The  closest  approaches  which  one  finds  to  the  ballad  man- 
ner are  the  religious  pieces  like  those  in  the  Sloane  and  the 
Hill  manuscripts. 

Lyrical  narratives  in  couplet  and  quatrain  form  are  ad- 
mitted as  ballads.  If  the  three-line  carol  stave  —  which 
dropped  from  use  because  a  less  suitable  form  for  narra- 
tive verse  19 —  were  recognized  also,  such  pieces  as  the  fol- 
lowing narrative  carol  20  might  be  termed  ballads.  Both 
the  couplet  and  the  carol  stave  had  wide  lyrical  popularity 
earlier  than  the  quatrain. 

Owt  of  the  est  a  sterre  shon  bright 
For  to  shew  thre  kingis  light, 
Which  had  ferre  traveled  day  &  nyght 
To  seke  that  lord  that  all  hath  sent. 

Therof  hard  kyng  Herode  anon, 
That  in  kingis  shuld  cum  thorow  his  regyon, 
To  seke  a  child  that  pere  had  non, 
And  after  them  sone  he  sent. 

Kyng  Herode  cried  to  them  on  hye: 
"Ye  go  to  seke  a  child  truly; 
Go  forth  &  cum  agayn  me  by, 
&  tell  me  wher  that  he  is  lent." 

Forth  they  went  by  the  sterres  leme, 
Till  they  com  to  mery  Bethlehem; 
Ther  they  fond  that  swet  barn-teme 
That  sith  for  vs  his  blode  hath  spent. 

*'  The  iteration  of  triple  rhyme  brings  monotony  and  checks  the 
speed  of  the  narrative.  Just  as  with  the  ballad,  so  with  the  popular 
hymn  stanza,  the  three-line  form  was  replaced  by  the  quatrain. 

20  MS.  Balliol  354.  Richard  Hill's  Commonplace  Book.  Ed.  Dy- 
boski,  E.  E.  T.  S.,  Extra  Series,  101  (1907),  p.  1. 


178     ENGLISH  BALLADS  AND  THE  CHURCH 

Balthasar  kneled  first  a  down 
&  said :  "  Hayll,  Kyng,  most  of  renown, 
And  of  all  kyngis  thou  berist  the  crown, 
Therfor  with  gold  I  the  present." 

Melchior  kneled  down  in  that  stede 
&  said :  "  Hayll,  Lord,  in  thy  pryest-hede. 
Receyve  ensence  to  thy  manhede, 
I  brynge  it  with  a  good  entent." 

Jasper  kneled  down  in  that  stede 
&  said :  "  Hayll,  Lord,  in  thy  knyghthede, 
I  offer  the  myrre  to  thy  godhede, 
For  thou  art  he  that  all  hath  sent." 

Now  lordis  &  ladys  in  riche  aray, 
Lyfte  vp  your  hartis  vpon  this  day, 
&  ever  to  God  lett  vs  pray, 
That  on  the  rode  was  rent. 

The  following  from  the  Hill  manuscript  21  is  not  in- 
cluded or  mentioned  by  Professor  Child,  yet,  if  instead  of 
being  narrated  in  the  first  person  like  a  few  of  the  ballads 
it  were  narrated  in  the  third,  like  most  of  them,  and  if  it 
were  in  couplet  or  in  the  more  usual  quatrain  form  instead 
of  in  monorhyme  quatrains,  who  would  hesitate  to  classify 
it  as  a  ballad  ?  It  is  clearly  akin  to  the  Judas  which  is  so 
classified. 

"  0  my  harte  is  wo !  "    Mary  she  sayd  so, 

"  For  to  se  my  dere  son  dye ;  &  sonnes  haue  I  no  mo." 

"  Whan  that  my  swete  son  was  xxxti  wynter  old, 

Than  the  traytor  Judas  wexed  very  bold;  0 

For  xxxti  platis  of  money,  his  master  he  had  sold; 

21  Ed.  Dyboski,  E.  E.  T.  S.,  101,  p.  40. 


SOME  BALLAD  AFFILIATIONS  1Y9 

But  whan  I  it  wyst,  lord  my  hart  was  cold. 
0,  my  hart  is  wo !  "  [Mary,  she  sayd  so, 
"  For  to  se  my  dere  son  dye;  &  sonnes  haue  I  no  mo."] 

"Vpon  Shere  Thursday  than  truly  it  was, 
On  my  sonnes  deth  that  Judas  did  on  passe; 
Many  were  the  fals  Jewes  that  folowed  hym  by  trace, 
&  there,  beffore  them  all,  he  kyssed  my  sonnes  face. 
0,  my  hart  [is  wo ! "  Mary,  she  sayd  so, 
"  For  to  se  my  dere  son  dye;  &  sonnes  haue  I  no  mo."] 

"My  son,  beffore  Pilat  browght  was  he; 

&  Peter  said  in  tymes  he  knew  hym  not  perde. 

Pylat  said  vnto  the  Jewes:  'What  say  ye?' 

Than  they  cryed  with  on  voys :  '  Crucyfyge ! ' 
0,  my  hart  is  woo !  "  [Mary,  she  sayd  so, 
"For  to  se  my  dere  son  dye;  &  sonnes  haue  I  no  mo."] 

"  On  Good  Friday  at  the  mownt  of  Caluary 
My  son  was  don  on  the  crosse,  naled  with  nalis  in, 
Of  all  the  frendis  that  he  had,  neuer  on  could  he  see, 
But  jentyll  the  evangelist,  that  still  stode  hym  by. 
0,  my  hart  [is  wo !  "  Mary,  she  sayd  so, 
"  For  to  se  my  dere  son  dye ;  &  sonnes  haue  I  no  mo."] 

"  Thowgh  I  were  sorowf ul,  no  man  haue  at  yt  wonder ; 

for  howge  was  the  erth-quak,  horyble  was  the  thonder; 

I  loked  on  my  swet  son  on  the  cross  that  stod  vnder; 

Then  cam  Lungeus  with  a  spere  &  clift  his  hart  in  sonder. 
0,  my  [hart  is  wo ! "  Mary,  she  sayd  so, 
"  For  to  se  my  dere  son  dye ;  &  sonnes  haue  I  no  mo.w] 

Its  relation  to  the  Judas  is  seen  when  the  two  are  read 
side  by  side.     The  latter  opens :  — 

Hit  wes  upon  a  Scerethorsday  that  vre  louerd  aros; 
Ful  milde  were  the  wordes  he  spec  to  ludas. 


180     ENGLISH  BALLADS  AND  THE  CHUKCH 

"ludas,  thou  most  to  lurselem,  oure  mete  for  to  bugge; 
Thritti  platen  of  seluer  thou  here  up  othi  ruggi.  .  .  ." 

It  is  a  somewhat  arbitrary  distinction  which  admits  the 
second  piece  as  a  ballad  and  denies  to  the  more  lyrical  one 
such  classification.  The  pieces  might  well  have  emerged 
from  the  same  types  of  authorship  and  audience.  The 
thirteenth-century  ballad  of  The  Twelfth  Day  in  the 
same  Trinity  College  manuscript  and  in  the  same  hand- 
writing as  the  Judas,  but  in  more  elaborate  stanza  form, 
has  already  been  mentioned.  It  opens :  — 

Wolle  ye  iheren  of  twelte  day,  wou  the  present  was  ibroust. 
In  to  betlem  ther  iesus  lay,  ther  thre  kinges  him  habbet  isoust. 
a  sterre  wiset  hem  the  wey,  sue  has  neuer  non  iwroust, 
ne  werede  he  nouther  f  ou  ne  grey,  the  louerd  that  us  alle  hauet 
iwroust. 

It  seems  difficult  to  believe  that  such  religious  pieces  as 
the  Judas  and  the  St.  Stephen  and  Herod  represent  a  type 
to  be  developed  by  the  addition  of  narrative  from  the  secu- 
lar carol  or  dance  song,  as  suggested  by  Professor  Ker.22 
They  owe  much  to  religious  songs.  Perhaps  if  we  note  that 
refrains  of  both  types,  of  secular  dance  songs  and  of 
religious  songs,  precede  the  appearance  of  refrains  in  the 
English  and  Scottish  ballads  (these  appear  mostly  in  the 
late  sixteenth  and  the  seventeenth  centuries)  ;  if  we  rec- 
ognize as  most  essential  in  the  ballads  a  narrative  element 
to  be  presented  in  the  manner  of  the  religious  pieces ;  and 
if  we  impose  the  somewhat  arbitrary  condition  of  couplet 
or  quatrain  form,  barring  the  three-line  carol  stave,  qua- 
train monorhyme,  and  related  forms,  we  are  on  fairly  safe 
ground.  Certainly  it  seems  quite  unnecessary  to  retain 

22  English  Literature:   Mediaeval    (1912).     Home  University   Lib- 
rary edition,  p.   159, 


SOME  BALLAD  AFFILIATIONS  181 

the  hypothesis  of  connection  with  dance-song  origin, 
whether  aristocratic,  like  the  secular  carols  of  Chaucer's 
time,  or  of  the  folk.  Behind  the  earliest  ballad  texts 
which  remain  to  us  one  finds  no  traces  of  affiliation  with 
secular  dance  songs. 

The  handling  of  the  refrain  is  striking  in  the  following 
piece,  also  from  the  Hill  manuscript,  which,  except  for  its 
brevity  and  for  our  traditional  rejection  of  narratives  in 
carol-stave  form,  we  should  classify  as  a  ballad.23 

THE  STONING  OP  ST.  STEPHEN 

Whan   seynt   Stevyn  was   at   Jeruzalem, 
Godis  lawes  he  loved  to  lerne; 
That  made  the  Jewes  to  cry  so  clere  &  clen, 
Lapidavenmt  Stephanum, 

No  we  syng  we  both  all  &  sum: 

Lapidauerunt   Stephanum. 

The  Jewes  that  were  both  false  &  fell, 
Against  seynt  Stephyn  they  were  cruell, 
Hym  to  sle  they  made  gret  yell, 
&  lapidaverunt  Stephanum 
Nowe  syng  we,  etc. 

They  pullid  hym  with-owt  the  town, 
&  than  he  mekely  kneled  down, 
While  the  Jewes  crakkyd  his  crown, 
Quia  lapidaverunt  Stephanum, 
Nowe  syng  we,  etc. 

Gret  stones  &  bones  at  hym  they  caste, 
Veynes  &  bones  of  hym  they  braste, 
&  they  kylled  hym  at  the  laste, 

28  E.  E.  T.  S.,  101  (1907),  p.  32.  The  Stoning  of  St.  Stephen  is 
not  mentioned  by  Professor  Child.  Both  the  St.  Stephen  pieces  are 
probably  to  be  classed  as  St.  Stephen  day  songs  or  carols. 


182     ENGLISH  BALLADS  AND  THE  CHURCH 

Quia  lapidauerunt  Stephanum. 
Nowe  syng  we,  etc. 

Pray  we  all  that  now  be  here, 
Vnto  seynt  Stephyn,  that  marter  clere, 
To  save  vs  all  from  the  fendis  fere. 
Lapidauerunt  Stephanum. 
Nowe  syng  we,  etc. 

It  arrays  itself  alongside  St.  Stephen  and  Herod.  The 
two  lyrics,  one  adjudged  to  be  a  ballad,  the  other  not  to  be 
one,  are  at  least  not  so  different  in  type  as  to  make  neces- 
sary the  hypothesis  of  an  utterly  different  mode  of  origin 
for  the  second.  The  Stoning  of  St.  Stephen  is  the  more 
lyrical  of  the  two  narratives  and,  unlike  the  earlier  piece, 
it  is  provided  with  a  refrain. 

The  following  affords  yet  another  illustration  of  eccle- 
siastical, or  semi-ecclesiastical,  narrative  song,  .from  the 
period  when  Child  ballads  were  not  yet  abundant.24 

THE  MURDER  OF  THOMAS  A  BEKET 

Lystyn,   lordyngis   both    gret   &   small, 
I  will  you  tell  a  wonder  tale, 
Howe  holy  chirch  was  browght  in  bale 
Cum  magna  iniuria. 

A,  a,  a,  a!  nunc  gaudet  ecclesia. 

The  gretteste  dark  in  this  londe, 
Thomas  of  Canturbury,  I  vnderstonde, 
Slayn  he  was  with  wykyd  honde, 
Malorum  potencia. 

A,  a,  a,  a!  nunc  gaudet  ecclesia. 

24Balliol  MS.  354  E.  E.  T.  S.,  101,  p.  31.  The  triple  rhyme  stanza 
of  these  ecclesiastical  ballads  appears  also  in  Miracle  plays,  e.  g., 
the  Chester  Noah's  Flood. 


BALLADS  AND  CLERICALS  183 

The  knyghtis  were  sent  from  Harry  the  kynge, 
That  day  they  dide  a  wykid  thynge, 
Wykyd  men,  with-owt  lesynge, 
Per  regis  imperia. 

A,  a,  a,  a!  nunc  gaudet  ecclesia. 

They  sowght  the  bisshop  all  a-bowt, 
With-in  his  place,   and  with-out, 
Of  Jhesu  Crist  they  had  no  dowght 
Per  sua  malicia. 

A,  a,  a,  a!  nunc  gaudet  ecclesia. 

They   opened  ther  mowthes  wonderly  wide, 
&  spake  to  hym  with  myche  pryde: 
"  Traytor,   here  thoW  shalt  abide, 
Ferens  mortis  tedia." 

A,  a,  a,  a!  nunc  gaudet  ecclesia. 

Beffore  the   auter  he  kneled   down, 
&  than  they  pared  his  crown, 
&  stered  his  braynes  vp  so  down, 
Optans  celi  gawdia. 

A,  a,  a,  a!  nunc  gaudet  ecclesia. 

Recognition  of  song-narratives  in  carol  stave,  as  well  as 
of  those  in  couplet  and  quatrain  form,  would  admit  this 
piece  also  among  ballads. 

Ill BALLADS   AND    CLERICALS 

Clericals  are  known  to  have  composed  and  sung  relig- 
ious lyrics;  but  an  alternative  hypothesis  from  that  of 
direct  ecclesiastical  creation  is  that  a  lyric  type  success- 
fully developed  by  minstrels,  namely  the  song-story  —  ex- 
isting alongside  the  songs  of  eulogy,  of  derision,  the  love 
songs,  and  other  matter  which  they  had  in  stock  for  en- 
tertainment—  was  adopted  and  made  use  of  for  its  own 


184     ENGLISH  BALLADS  AND  THE  CHUKCH 

ends  by  the  church.  There  would  be  abundant  parallels 
for  such  a  taking  over.  Ritson  25  speaks  of  the  utilization 
of  popular  airs  by  the  Methodists  of  his  day,  much  as  they 
had  been  utilized  earlier  by  the  Puritans.  The  practice 
was  not  unknown  to  the  evangelists  Moody  and  Sankey  and 
is  not  extinct  among  revivalists  of  the  present  time. 
Sumer  is  icumen  in  of  the  thirteenth  century  perhaps  owes 
its  preservation  to  the  religious  words  written  below  the 
secular  ones  in  the  manuscript  which  has  come  down  to  us, 
and  there  are  other  examples  in  old  manuscripts  of  relig- 
ious adaptation  of  secular  lyrics.  To  find  illustration 
farther  back,  Ealdhelm  is  described  by  William  of  Malmes- 
bury 26  as  sometimes  standing  in  gleeman's  garb  on  a 
bridge  and  inserting  words  of  scriptural  content  into  his 
lighter  songs  —  an  early  example  of  the  connection  be- 
tween the  church  and  songs  for  the  common  folk.  After 
the  Conquest,  with  the  coming  of  a  new  type  of  song,  the 
employment  of  the  short  recited  tale  or  of  the  sung  story 
for  popularizing  religious  material  might  well  have  pro- 
duced pieces  like  the  thirteenth-century  Judas  or  the  later 
St.  Stephen  and  Herod  or  Inter  Diabolus  et  Virgo.  If  the 
modes  of  the  church  were  often  utilized  for  secular  poetry, 
the  contrary  tendency,  the  adoption  of  what  was  popular 
by  the  church,  is  also  marked.  The  great  days  of  the  min- 
strels were  the  eleventh,  twelfth,  and  thirteenth  centuries, 
and  the  days  of  their  break-up  the  fifteenth  and  the  six- 
teenth centuries.  Warton  thought  that  "  some  of  our 
greater  monasteries  kept  minstrels  of  their  own  in  regular 

26  Dissertation  on  Ancient  Songs  and  Music,  prefixed  to  Ancient 
Songs  and  Ballads.  Vol.  I  (ed.  of  1829),  p.  Ixxviii. 

2«  De  Gestis  Pontificum  Anglorum.  Chronicles  and  Memorials  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland  during  the  Middle  Ages.  Published  under 
the  direction  of  the  Master  of  the  Rolls,  1858-99,  p.  336. 


BALLADS  AND  CLERICALS  185 

pay."  27  The  class  of  minstrels  indicated  by  Thomas  de 
Cabham,  a  thirteenth-century  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  as 
to  be  tolerated  while  other  classes  deserved  to  be  con- 
demned, was  the  class  which  sang  the  deeds  of  princes  and 
the  lives  of  saints.28  When  minstrels  had  ecclesiastical 
audiences,  religious  matter  or  national  or  heroic  matter 
might  come  from  them  appropriately.  A  testimony  re- 
mains concerning  the  songs  of  a  minstrel  Herbert  before 
the  prior  of  St.  Swithin's  when  he  entertained  his  bishop 
at  Winchester  in  the  fourteenth  century  (1338),  and  they 
were  songs  of  Colbrand  (Guy  of  Warwick)  and  of  the  de- 
liverance by  miracle  of  Queen  Emma.29  Erom  the  fif- 
teenth century  is  a  record  of  a  song  of  the  early  Christian 
legend  of  the  Seven  Sleepers  of  Ephesus  given  at  an  Epiph- 
any entertainment  at  Bicester  in  1432.30  These  may 
not  have  been  ballads,  but  they  fall  in  the  ballad  period  and 
their  material  is  of  the  type,  the  deeds  of  princes  and  the 
lives  of  saints  and  martyrs,  which  was  countenanced  by  de 
Cabham. 

A  piece  of  first-hand  evidence  concerning  the  value  of 
the  harper  and  his  harp  to  a  discriminating  prelate  is  re- 

27  There  are  many  records  of  payments  to  minstrels  extant  in 
account  books  of  Durham  Priory,  from  the  thirteenth  century  on- 
ward, and  from  Maxtoke  and  Thetford  Priories  from  the  fifteenth 
century.  See.  E.  K.  Chambers,  The  Medieval  Stage. 

as  Penitential,  printed  by  B.  Haureau,  Notices  et  Extraits  de 
Manuscrits,  xxiv,  ii,  284,  from  Bib.  Nat.  Lat.  3218  and  3529.  Sunt 
autem  alii,  qui  dicuntur  ioculatores,  qui  cantant  gesta  principum  et 
vitam  sanctorum,  et  faciunt  solatia  hominibus  vel  in  aegritudinibus 
suis  vel  in  angustiis  .  .  .  et  non  faciunt  etc.  ...  Si  autem  non 
faciunt  talia,  sed  cantant  in  instrumentis  suis  gesta  principum  et 
alia  talia  utilia  ut  faciant  solatia  hominibus,  sicut  supradictum  est, 
bene  possunt  sustineri  tales,  sicut  ait  Alexander  papa. 

2»  See  Warton,  History  of  English  Poetry,  ed.  of  1840,  pp.  81,  82. 

aoKennet,  Parochial  Antiquities   (1695),  ed.  of  1818. 


186     ENGLISH  BALLADS  AND  THE  CHURCH 

lated  by  Robert  Manning  of  Bmnne  in  an  account  of  Rob- 
ert Grosseteste,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  who  died  in  1253. 
Bishop  Grosseteste  wrote  in  English  as  well  as  Latin,  trans- 
lating the  allegorical  Cartel  of  Love  into  English  for  the 
sake  of  the  ignorant.  He  recognized  that  the  common  peo- 
ple had  to  be  reached  in  their  own  tongue.  Robert  Man- 
ning's testimony  is  as  follows:31 

Y  shall  yow  telle,  as  y  haue  herd 

Of   the   bysshope   Seynt    Roberd; 

Hys  toname  ys   Grostest 

Of  Lynkolne,  so  seyth  the  gest. 

He  loued  moche  to  here  the  harpe, 

For  mannys  wytte  hyt  makyth  sharpe; 

Next  hys  chaumbre,  beside  hys  stody, 

Hys  harpers  chaumbre  was  fast  thereby. 

Many  tymes,  be  nyhtys  and  dayys, 

He  had  solace  of  notes  and  layys. 

One  asked  hym  onys,  resun  why 

He  hadde   delyte  yn  mynstralsy: 

He  answerede  hym  on  thys  manere, 

Why  he  helde  the  harper  so  dere, 

The  vertu  of  the  harpe,  thurgh  skylle  &  ryght 

Wyl  destroye  the  fendes  myght, 

And  to  the  croys  by  gode  skylle 

Ys  the  harpe  lykened  "weyle.  .  .  . 

The  harpe  therof  me  ofte  mones; 

Of  the  ioye  and  of  the  blys 

Where  God  hymself  wonys  and  ys. 

Thare-fore,  gode  men,  ye  shul  lere, 

Whan  ye  any  glemen  here, 

To  wurschep  God  at  youre  powere, 

As  Dauyd  seyth  yn  the  sautere, 

Yn  liarpe,  yn  thabour,  and  symphan  gle, 

Wurschepe  God,  yn  troumpes  and  sautre, 

•i  Handlyng  Syrme,  ed.  F.  J.  Furnivall,  E.  E.  T.  S.,  119. 


BALLADS  AND  CLERICALS  187 

Yn  cordes,  an  organes,  and  bellys  ryngyng, 
Yn  al  these,  wurschepe  ye  heuene  kyng. 
Yf  ye  do  thus,  y  sey  hardly, 
Ye  mow  here  youre  mynstralsy. 

The  alternative  possibilities  (granting  that  religious  bal- 
lads are  an  early  type)  are:  that  short  narrative  lyrics  on 
ecclesiastical  themes  emerged  directly  from  clericals  and 
that  the  type  was  later  secularized ;  or  that  they  emerged 
from  the  minstrels,  and  ecclesiastics  availed  themselves  of 
the  type ;  or  that  minstrels  were  solely  responsible  for  the 
early  religious  ballads,  composing  them  for  audiences  for 
whom  they  were  especially  suitable.  But  when  lingering 
over  these  hypotheses,  one  is  inclined  to  give  the  church  a 
greater  share  of  responsibility  for  the  earliest  ballads  than 
the  third  hypothesis  assumes. 

If  the  earliest  medieval  ballads,  meaning  by  ballads 
lyrical  stories  of  the  type  collected  by  Professor  Child, 
were  contemporaneously  on  both  religious  and  heroic  sub- 
jects, it  is  chance,  or  else  the  interest  of  ecclesiastics,  that 
has  preserved  for  us  specimens  of  the  one  type  and  not  of 
the  other.  If  the  heroic  type,  chronicle  or  legendary,  was 
as  early  as  the  religious,  early  examples  have  not  remained 
to  show  it.  Against  the  hypothesis  of  contemporaneous- 
ness is  the  circumstance  that  songs  of  all  other  kinds,  min- 
strel and  popular,  satires,  eulogies  of  princes  and  heroes, 
songs  of  victories,  love  songs,  songs  of  disparagement  or 
derision,  humorous  songs,  drinking  songs,  and  the  like, 
have  descended  to  us  from  the  Middle  Ages.  If  ballads  of 
the  heroic  type  existed  early,  they  should  have  appeared  at 
least  as  early  as  the  thirteenth  century.  The  wish  to  im- 
press sacred  story  may  well  have  afforded  the  impulse  to 
present  such  narratives  in  a  short  lyrical  way,  and  the 


188     ENGLISH  BALLADS  AND  THE  CHURCH 

presence  of  narrative  is  the  fundamental  differentia,  the 
quality  distinguishing  it  from  other  folk-song,  of  the  bal- 
lad as  a  lyric  type. 

A  refrain  is  not  present  in  the  earliest  ballad  texts  nor 
in  the  fifteenth-century  ballads,32  including  the  Robin 
Hood  pieces.  Refrains  do  not  appear  in  ballads  until  the 
sixteenth  century,  though  they  are  frequent  in  early  lyrics 
of  other  types.  Moreover,  they  are  sufficiently  accounted 
for  in  the  proportion  of  ballads  in  which  they  are  present 
(not  more  than  a  fourth)  by  the  fact  that  the  ballads  were 
sung.  Hymns  and  carols  and  many  love  songs  have  re- 
frains, and  the  ballad  refrains  were  handled  on  the  whole 
in  their  way.  They  do  not  resemble  the  fundamental  ite- 
rative lines  of  dance  songs,  around  which  the  latter  songs 
as  a  class  are  built.33  Ballad  refrains  are  added  from 
the  outside  and  are  not  stable  even  for  the  same  text,  while 
the  refrain  is  the  most  identifying  feature  of  the  average 
traditional  dance  song.  It  is  well  established  that  the  ear- 
liest mediaeval  dance  songs  were  not  ballads;  though  the 
latter  came  to  be  used  occasionally  as  dance  songs,  consist- 
ently as  such  in  Denmark.  The  fundamental  characteris- 
tic of  ballads,  the  point  of  departure  for  their  differentia- 
tion as  a  lyric  type,  would  be  their  presentation  of  charac- 
ters and  story  in  a  lyrical  way,  suitable  for  short  recital 
or  for  song.  It  would  not  be  the  presence  of  a  refrain,  nor 
of  incremental  repetition,  nor  parallelism  of  line  struc- 
ture ;  for  both  are  often  absent  from  ballads  and  often  pre- 
sent in  other  types  of  folk-song.  A  "  situation "  mode 

32  Unless  in  Robin  and  Gandeleyn.  If  a  refrain  is  present  in  this 
ballad  it  is  extraneous  to  the  stanza  structure,  not  part  of  it.  The 
stanzas  of  the  ballad  so  vary  in  form  and  length  as  to  make  them 
seem  more  suitable  for  recital  than  for  singing. 

as  See  Chapter  n. 


BALLADS  AND  CLERICALS  189 

of  narration  is  not  perhaps  fundamental,  but  such  a  mode 
would  be  natural  in  a  lyric  to  be  recited  dramatically  like 
the  Judas  perhaps,  or  like  St.  Stephen  and  Herod;  or  it 
might  be  developed,  like  repetition  and  parallelism,  in  tra- 
ditional preservation.  Ballad  creation  has  for  its  motivat- 
ing impulse  the  circumstance  that  characters  and  their 
story  are  to  be  brought  before  hearers,  not  in  a  narrative 
to  be  read,  but  briefly  and  memorably  and  dramatically  in 
a  recitational  or  song  way.  Only  stories  which  lend  them- 
selves well  to  such  handling  are  eligible  material. 

It  is  possible  that  very  widespread  diffusion  for  the  bal- 
lads, especially  for  the  secular  ballads,  their  composition 
in  quantity  and  their  popular  currency,  may  have  come 
later  than  is  generally  assumed.  They  cannot  have  been 
very  abundant  when  the  makers  of  the  Sloane  MS.  2593 
and  the  Balliol  MS.  354  made  their  collections.  These 
men  obviously  had  a  taste  for  popular  verse,  yet  compared 
to  their  display  of  related  types  of  folk-verse,  of  approaches 
to  ballads,  their  showing  of  ballads  proper  is  meager. 
Had  many  ballads  of  the  Child  type  been  in  general  circu- 
lation in  Southern  England  before  the  Elizabethan  period, 
had  this  type  of  verse  been  so  recognized,  so  distinctive  and 
current  as  it  was  in  the  later  sixteenth  and  the  seventeenth 
centuries,  the  makers  of  these,  like  the  makers  of  later 
manuscript  books,  might  have  been  expected  to  give  pro- 
portionate space  to  ballads  in  their  pages. 

The  number  of  early  religious  ballads  remaining  is  some- 
what slender,  too  slender  for  a  very  solid  structure  to  be 
based  upon  them ;  but  their  evidence  is  the  most  authentic 
that  we  have.  The  subject  of  ballad  origins  may  well  be 
re-examined  from  the  angle  of  approach  which  these,  our 
earliest  ballad  texts,  suggest.  The  species  next  to  fix  at- 


190     ENGLISH  BALLADS  AND  THE  CHURCH 

tention  upon  itself  is  the  outlaw  ballad  of  the  fifteenth  and 
early  sixteenth  centuries ;  but  the  outlaw  ballads  come  too 
late  for  dependable  significance.  Some  were  plainly  to  be 
recited ; 34  in  general  they  lack  the  refrain  element ;  and 
they  afford  no  help  in  explaining  the  origin  of  the  lyrical 
species.  The  suggestion  which  relates  the  early  ballads  to 
the  religious,  not  the  secular,  carols  as  a  type  of  folk-song, 
which  assumes  ecclesiastical  emergence  for  the  ballads 
prior  to  their  minstrel  popularity,  or  else  early  adoption 
by  ecclesiastics  of  a  new  minstrel  lyric  type,  has  the  dis- 
tinction of  novelty,  whether  or  not  it  seem  likely.  And 
it  is  based  on  fact,  not  conjecture.  The  possibility  that 
ballad  literature  began  with  clericals  deserves  to  be  taken 
into  account,  alongside  the  hypotheses  of  ballad  origin 
which  have  been  brought  forward  in  the  past. 

Few  having  knowledge  of  the  shifting  types  and  styles 
of  popular  song  would  maintain  that  the  folk-songs,  the 
dance  songs,  if  you  will,  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  before  the 
Norman  Conquest  were  of  the  structure  and  type  of  the 
Child  ballads.  The  patterns  which  these  exhibit  arose 
later.  Nor  were  the  old  heroic  lyrics  of  the  Germanic 
peoples,  whether  narrative  or  not,  of  the  type  of  the  Child 
ballads.  In  the  hypothesis  that  mediaeval  ballad  literature 
emerged  under  the  influence  of  clericals,  or  in  something 
like  it,  may  perhaps  be  found  the  explanation  best  satis- 
fying all  the  conditions.  Examination  is  desirable,  from 
this  angle  of  approach,  of  the  early  lyrical  verse  of  other 
leading  European  peoples.  The  ballad  documents  of  Con- 

3*  See  the  testimony  concerning  "  robene  hude  and  litil  ihone " 
and  the  tale  of  the  "  zong  tamlene "  listed  in  The  Complaynt  of 
Scotland,  1549.  Edited  by  J.  A.  H.  Murray,  E.  E.  T.  S.  (1872).  vol. 
I,  p.  63. 


BALLADS  AND  CLERICALS  191 

tinental  literatures  are  no  earlier  than  the  English,  if  so 
early;  but  the  more  the  available  evidence,  the  better  for 
the  investigator.  A  scrutiny  of  them  might  lend  support 
to  the  suggestions  brought  forward  here,  or  it  might  con- 
tradict them,  or  it  might  bring  light  from  some  unexpected 
source. 


CHAPTEE  VI 


American  interest  in  ballads  and  in  other  folk-songs  has 
arisen  mainly  as  an  aftermath  of  the  quest  of  Old  World 
traditional  texts  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Some  im- 
pulse has  come  from  other  sources.  The  collection  and 
preservation  of  many  popular  songs  and  ballads  of  the 
Revolution  and  of  the  Civil  War  is  to  be  credited  to  his- 
torians, although  no  consistent  effort  was  made  at  the 
psychological  time  to  assemble  and  to  preserve  such  pieces. 
Of  leading  importance  was  the  impetus  given  to  the  recov- 
ery of  American  folk-song  by  Professor  Francis  James 
Child.  He  accumulated  a  vast  number  of  broadsides  and 
orally  preserved  texts  in  the  Harvard  University  library, 
and  since  his  death  material  has  been  added  steadily 
through  the  vigilant  personal  interest  and  the  stimulus  to 
others  of  Professor  G.  L.  Kittredge.  Professor  Kittredge 
has  encouraged  the  gathering  and  identification  of  tradi- 
tional texts  from  various  parts  of  the  United  States  for 
many  years,  and  students  of  folk-song  are  deeply  in  his 
debt.  Another  historic  name  among  scholars  is  that  of 
W.  W.  Newell,  a  pioneer  collector  of  the  songs  and  games 
of  American  children  and  a  founder  of  the  American 
Folk-Lore  Society.  In  recent  decades,  many  regional  col- 
lectors have  gathered  material,  especially  along  the  Atlan- 
tic coast,  in  the  South,  and  in  the  Central  West,  and  the 

192 


realization  has  arisen  that  there  is  a  picturesque  body  of 
orally  preserved  song  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  Such 
traditional  material  is  of  interest  to  the  lover  of  poetry 
for  the  occasional  flashes  of  quality  which  it  exhibits  and 
for  its  contrast  to  book  poetry.  It  is  of  interest  to  the 
student  of  literature  for  the  value  as  social  documents 
of  the  pieces  it  preserves,  and  for  the  evidence  which 
they  give  concerning  the  development  and  transmission  of 
folk-songs.  Enough  material  is  already  available  to  throw 
light  on  many  points  of  geographical  distribution,  and  of 
song  history,  and  to  establish  some  main  lines  of  grouping. 

I OLD-WORLD    BALLADS    AND    SONGS    TN    AMEEICA 

Of  the  types  of  folk-song  existent  in  America,  the  leg- 
endary and  romantic  ballads  of  England  and  Scotland, 
large  numbers  of  which  have  emigrated  to  the  New  World, 
are  those  which  have  been  recovered  and  examined  with 
the  greatest  interest.  They  have  found  many  enthusiastic 
collectors.1  If  they  have  not  quite  monopolized  the  fore- 

i  Some  leading  collectors  are :  H.  G.  Shearin  and  J.  H.  Coombs 
for  the  Cumberland  mountains,  Syllabus  of  Kentucky  Folk-Song 
(1911);  C.  Alphonso  Smith  for  Virginia  (see  infra,  note  2); 
Reed  Smith  for  South  Carolina  (see  infra,  note  2)  ;  H.  M.  Belden 
for  Missouri,  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  vols.  19,  20,  23;  A. 
H.  Tolman  for  Illinois,  ibid.,  vol.  29;  Phillips  Barry  for  New  Eng- 
land, see  many  papers  and  texts  in  the  Journal  of  American  Folk- 
Lore,  vol.  14  and  following;  Cecil  Sharp  and  Olive  Dame  Campbell, 
Folk-Song  of  the  Southern  Appalachians  (1917)  ;  Josephine  McGill, 
Folk-Song  of  the  Kentucky  Mountains  (1917);  E.  F.  Piper  for 
Iowa  (unpublished)  ;  Louise  Pound,  Folk-Song  of  Nebraska  and  the 
Central  West:  A  Syllabus  (1915).  By  far  the  largest  and  most  im- 
portant collection  is  in  the  Harvard  library. 

Illustrative  American  traditional  songs  are  accessible  in  the  pres- 
ent writer's  Oral  Verse  in  the  United  States,  1921. 

The  discussion  of  balladry  in  America  in  the  present  chapter  is 


194  BALLADEY  IN  AMERICA 

ground  in  discussions  of  American  folk-song  they  have 
nearly  done  so.  They  constitute  the  folk-pieces  most 
archaic  in  style  and  having  the  longest  history.  They  are 
those  most  easily  sought  and  identified  by  the  average 
searcher  for  traditional  material,  since  they  are  to  be 
found  in  printed  collections,  and  there  is  no  little  mystery 
concerning  their  origin.  They  have  reached  this  country 
in  various  ways.  Some  surely  were  brought  over  by  the 
early  colonists  and  were  handed  down  by  their  descend- 
ants. Others  may  have  been  brought  over  not  long  after 
by  sailors  or  returned  travellers.  Still  others  enter  from 
time  to  time  with  newcomers  from  the  British  Isles.  The 
process  of  importation  has  not  quite  ceased. 

Old  World  ballads  in  the  United  States  are,  on  the 
whole,  best  recovered  from  regions  where  the  songs  and 
song  modes  of  the  past  have  not  been  displaced  by  the 
entrance  of  later  songs  and  song  modes.  At  times  such 
texts  come  to  light  in  cities,  but  much  more  characteris- 
tically they  are  salvaged  from  remote  and  isolated  com- 
munities unsupplied  with  later  popular  songs  and  relying 
still  upon  the  entertainment  of  song,  instead  of  upon  the 
variety  of  present  devices  available  for  passing  the  time  of 
young  and  old.  Outlying  rural  districts,  particularly 
mountain  communities,  yield  especial  results.  The  best 
hunting  grounds  for  collectors  have  been  the  North  Atlan- 
tic States  and  the  Southern  mountains,  like  the  Cumber- 
land mountains  —  the  Appalachian  region  in  general ;  that 
is,  those  regions  of  the  United  States  which  were  earliest 

indebted  in  scattered  passages  to  the  author's  discussion  of  oral  liter- 
ature in  the  United  States  in  the  Cambridge  History  of  American 
Literature,  vol.  in.  Occasionally  it  uses  the  same  material  in  illus- 
tration. 


OLD-WORLD  BALLADS  AND  SONGS      195 

settled.  In  the  West,  villages  and  isolated  farms  and 
ranches  yield  an  occasional  Old  World  ballad,  but  a  text 
is  likely  to  be  recovered  wherever  some  newcomer  from 
an  older  community  has  settled,  or,  especially,  some 
immigrant  to  the  New  World;  or  where  the  descendants 
of  such  newcomers  have  good  memories  for  their  parents' 
songs.  A  few  traditional  ballads  have  lingered  as  nursery 
songs ;  for  example  Lord  Randal,  The  Two  Brothers,  and 
Lamkin. 

Texts  or  fragments  of  nearly  80  of  the  305  ballads  in- 
cluded in  the  Child  collection  have  been  recovered  in  the 
United  States,2  mainly  from  oral  sources,  sometimes  from 
manuscript  books.  As  regards  distribution,  the  Southern 
mountains  and  the  New  England  states  have  yielded  the 
greatest  returns,  though  some  texts  have  been  recovered 
from  the  central  West  and  even  from  the  far  West.  Lead- 
ing in  popularity  among  them  is  Barbara  Allen's  Cru- 
elty:—* 

'Twas  in  the   merry  month  of   May 
When   the   green   buds   were    a-swelling 
Sweet  William  on  his  death  bed  lay 
For  the  love  of  Barbara  Allen. 

Another  widely  current  favorite  is  Lord  Lovel,  sometimes 
transformed  to  Lord  Lover,  whose  hero  goes  on  a  journey 
after  bidding  farewell  to  his  sweetheart,  returns,  and  finds 
her  dead. 

2  See  especially  Reed  Smith,  The  Traditional  Ballad  in  the  South, 
Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  27,  pp.  55-66 ;  ibid.,  28,  pp.  199- 
203.     C.   Alphonso   Smith   Ballads  Surviving  in  the   United  States, 
The  Musical  Quarterly,  vol.  II,  pp.  109-129. 

3  Unless  indicated  otherwise,  the  texts  of  Old  World  songs  quoted 
in  the  following  pages  are  central  Western. 


196  BALLADRY  IN  AMERICA 

"  0  where  are  you  going,  Lord  Lovel  ?  "  she  said, 
"0  where  are  you  going?"  says  she. 
"I'm  going,  my  lady  Nancy  Bell, 
Strange  countries  for  to  see,  see,  see, 
Strange   countries  for   to   see." 

Another  popular  importation  is  the  ballad  of  Lord  Bate- 
man  (Bakeman,  Bayham,  etc.),  the  Young  Beichan  of  the 
Scottish  ballad,  who  is  rescued  from  a  Turkish  prison  by 
his  captor's  daughter.  She  follows  him  seven  years  later 
to  his  own  country,  arrives  on  the  eve  of  his  wedding  to 
another,  and  herself  becomes  his  bride.  The  Two  Sisters, 
one  of  whom  pushes  the  other  into  a  mill  stream  where  she 
is  drowned,  and  Geordie,  also  have  considerable  currency. 
Lord  Randal  roams  the  country  under  many  aliases.  As 
recovered  in  a  Colorado  railway  camp  4  the  song  tells  the 
tragic  story  of  Johnny  Randall. 

"Where  was  you  last  night,  Johnny  Randall,  my  son'? 
"Where  was  you  last  night,  my  heart's  loving  one?" 
"  A-fishing,  a-f owling,  mother  make  my  bed  soon, 
For  I'm  sick  at  my  heart  and  I  fain  would  lie  down." 

He  becomes  Jimmy  Randall  in  Illinois,  Jimmy  Ransing 
in  Indiana,  Johnny  Ramble  in  Ohio,  and  Johnny  Ran- 
dolph in  North  Carolina.  Most  of  the  Old  World  bal- 
lads preserved  in  the  United  States  are  upon  themes  of 
romantic  love,  of  tragedy,  and  adventure.  Little  Harry 
Hughes,  deriving  from  Sir  Hugh  and  the  Jew's  Daughter, 
is  a  legacy  of  the  mediaeval  superstitions  against  the  J  ews. 
A  riddle  ballad  remains,  The  Cambric  Shirt,  which  bears 
some  relation  to  The  Elfin  Knight,  and  a  few  sea  pieces 
survive,  like  The  Three  Sailor  Boys,  related  to  The  Mer- 

*  By  H.  C.  House.     See  Modern  Language  Notes,  vol.  17,  p.  6. 


OLD-WOKLD  BALLADS  AND  SONGS      197 

maid,  and  The  Golden  Vanity,  or  The  Lowlands  Low. 
What  has  happened  to  these  Old  World  pieces  in  the 
New?  Have  they  improved  or  decayed  from  their  Eng- 
lish and  Scottish  originals  ?  Some  are  spun  out  by  repe- 
tition and  iteration  and  lose  their  cohesion  in  garrulous- 
ness.  Most  are  made  over  to  agree  with  a  democratic  en- 
vironment and  with  the  horizons  of  their  singers.  The 
Child  ballads  have  to  do  with  the  high  born.  They  tell 
of  the  adventures  of  kings  and  princesses  and  nobles,  com- 
bats, the  chase,  clan  feuds,  the  domestic  tragedies  of 
aristocrats.  These  pass  in  America  into  plebeian  narra- 
tives of  homelier  setting;  the  unknown,  in  names,  or  ob- 
jects, or  descriptive  terms,  is  made  over  into  the  known,  in 
the  folk-etymological  manner.  Localizations  are  changed, 
as  well  as  names  and  characters.  Serious  events  are  often 
vulgarized  or  made  commonplace.  The  romantic  aristo- 
cratic elements  are  dimmed.  Lord  Randal's  metamor- 
phosis has  been  mentioned.  In  many  American  versions, 
Sir  John  and  Sir  Hugh  of  The  Two  Brothers  become  two 
little  schoolboys.  Sometimes  the  supernatural  is  lost,  as 
when  the  devil  in  some  versions  of  The  Ship's  Carpenter 
becomes  a  returned  lover ;  or  when,  as  in  some  versions  of 
The  Fanner's  Curst  Wife,  he  disappears.  A  few  have 
been  utilized  as  game  or  dance  songs,  as  Barbara  Allen's 
Cruelty  and  The  Two  Sisters.  The  Two  Brothers  in  its 
Nebraska  version,  seems  to  be  turning  into  a  Western 
song :  — 

"  0  what  shall  I  tell  your  true  love,  John, 

If  she   inquires   for  you?" 
"  0  tell  her  I'm  dead  and  lying  in  my  grave, 

Way  out  in   Idaho." 


198  BALLADRY  IN  AMERICA 

Each  ballad  may  be  accommodated  to  a  variety  of  melo- 
dies; it  is  a  safe  generalization  that  the  texts  of  ballads 
are  more  constant  than  the  melodies.  Occasionally  bal- 
lads cross  or  become  disordered  and  a  new  amalgam  song 
emerges.5  Rarely  mannerisms  of  the  English  and  Scottish 
ballads  spread  to  indigenous  pieces.  On  the  whole,  the 
degenerative  effects  of  oral  preservation  are  well  exempli- 
fied by  the  mass  of  Old  World  pieces  which  have  been 
recovered  in  America.  Not  brought  over,  or  dying  out 
early  if  they  were  brought  over,  are  heroic  tales  and 
border  ballads,  and  songs  turning  on  local  customs,  as  har- 
vest songs,  carols,  and  the  like. 

But  the  legendary  English  and  Scottish  ballads  reaching 
America  are  not  the  only  ballads  to  be  imported.  In 
later  British  balladry  commonplace  characters  replace  the 
aristocrats  and  other  styles  the  minstrel  style.  British 
ballads  of  this  later  type,  on  the  themes  of  the  broadside 
press  of  the  last  two  centuries,  have  far  greater  currency 
in  the  United  States  than  do  the  legendary  and  romantic 
ballads.  Of  this  type  is  The  Butchers  Boy,  in  one  text 
of  which  a  girl  from  Jersey  City  loves  a  butcher's  boy,  but 
he  deserts  her  for  another  "  because  she  has  more  gold 
than  I."  At  the  close  of  the  song  the  girl  hangs  herself, 
leaving  lines  pinned  on  her  breast.  It  is  related  to  the 
British  A  Brisk  Young  Loner.  The  Boston  Burglar,  or 
Charleston,  is  related  to  A  Sheffield  Apprentice.  The 
speaker  says  that  he  was  brought  up  by  honest  parents  but 
his  "  character  was  taken  "  and  he  could  not  be  cleared. 
He  was  sent  as  the  "  Boston  Burglar  "  to  Charleston. 

5  See  H.  M.  Belden,  Folk  Song  in  America  —  Some  Recent  Publi- 
cations.    Modern  Language  Notes,  vol.   34,  p.   139. 


OLD-WORLD  BALLADS  AND  SONGS      199 

And  every  station  I  would  pass 

I'd  hear  the  people  say, 
There  goes  a  Boston  burgular, 

See  he's  all  bound  in  iron. 

Jack  Williams  is  a  boatman  by  trade.  For  the  sake  of 
a  girl  he  took  to  robbing  and  was  brought  back  to  Sing 
Sing  (Newgate)  :  — 

On  Bowery   (Chatton)   street  I  did  reside, 

Where  the  people  did  me  know, 
I  fell  in  love  with  a  pretty  girl, 

She  proved  my  overthrow. 

Of  greater  interest  is  Betsy  Brown,  which  derives  obvi- 
ously from  colonial  days.6  A  woman's  son,  Johnny, 
loves  Betsy  the  servant.  The  mother  takes  Betsy  to  the 
seaside  where  she  sells  her  across  to  "  verginny."  Her 
son  dies  and  the  mother  repents  her  act  too  late.  This 
ballad  has  been  recovered  from  New  England,  the  central 
West,  and  the  far  West.  A  Nebraska  text  is  in  manu- 
script form  and  preserves  the  story  pretty  completely. 

0  son,  0  son,  your  love's  in  vain  for  we  sold  betsy  cross  the 

main; 

My  son,  my  son,  my  son,  says  she,  your  bringing  scandal  on 
you  and  me, 

1  would  rather  see  your  corpse  lie  dead  than  to  marry  betsy  a 

servant  maid. 

Older  still,  in  all  probability,  is  The  Death  of  a  Romish 
Lady  which  has  also  reached  the  central  West.  It  tells 
the  story  of  a  lady  who  became  a  convert  to  Protestantism, 
possessed  a  Bible,  and  would  not  "  bow  to  idols."  For 

»C.  H.  Firth  prints  a  text  in  An  American  Garland  (1915),  p.  69. 


200  BALLADEY  IN  AMERICA 

this  her  cruel  mother  had  her  brought  before  priests  and 
burned. 

There  lived  a  Romish  lady 
Brought  up  in  proper  array, 

Her  mother  oftimes  told  her 
She  must  the  priest  obey. 

This  is  to  be  identified  with  the  Elizabethan  "  It  was  a 
lady's  daughter,  of  Paris  properly,"  introduced  into 
Fletcher's  Knight  of  the  Burning  Pestle.  The  earliest 
text  preserved  is  a  reprint  from  the  times  of  Charles  II.7 
The  American  texts  have  been  shortened  a  little,  in  three 
centuries,  and  show  simplification,  but  the  original  narra- 
tive is  well  preserved. 

Of  Old  World  provenance  is  also  the  widely  diffused 
Willie  and  Mary  or  the  Bedroom  Window,  sometimes 
known  also  as  The  Drowsy  Sleeper.  It  hints  a  tragedy 
not  carried  out  in  most  texts. 

"0  Mary  dear,  go  ask  your  father 

If  you  my  wedded  bride  can  be. 
If  he  says  nay  then  come  and  tell  me, 

And  I  no  more  will  trouble  thee." 

"  0  Willie  dear,  I  dare  not  ask  him, 

For  he  lies  on  his  bed  of  rest, 
And  by  his  side  there  lies  a  dagger 

To  pierce  the  one  that  I  love  best." 

Songs  of  the  pirate  Captain  Kidd  and  of  Turpin  the 
highwayman  still  have  currency  in  American  folk-song. 
Father  Grumble,  or  Old  Grumble,  has  many  aliases  and 
is  a  song  of  Old  World  pedigree,  but  the  same  story  is 

i  Accessible  in  The  Roxburgh  Ballads,  vol.  I,  p.  43. 


INDIGENOUS  BALLADS  AND  SONGS     201 

always  told.     Father  and  Mother  Grumble  exchange  tasks 
for  the  day  and  the  former  comes  to  grief. 

Father  Grumble  he  did  say, 
As  sure  as  the  moss  round  a  tree, 
That  he  could  do  more  work  in  a  day 
Than  his  wife  could  do  in  three,  three, 
That  he  could  do  more  work  in  a  day 
Than  his  wife  could  do  in  three. 

Other  importations  are  The  Farmer's  Boy,  the  story  of  a 
poor  boy  who  comes  to  a  farmer's  door,  and  in  the  course 
of  time  marries  the  farmer's  daughter  and  inherits  the 
land,  The  Soldier,  who  when  eloping  with  a  lady  with 
a  fortune  is  met  by  the  father  and  armed  men,  The  Banks 
of  Claudy  or  The  Lover's  Return,  The  Prentice  Boy  or 
Cupid's  Garden,  The  Rich  Merchant  of  London  whose 
daughter  drinks  poison  because  loving  against  her  father's 
wishes,  the  tragedies  of  Lady  Caroline  of  Edinboro  Town, 
and  of  Mary  of  the  Wild  Moor  or  The  Village  Bride, 
and  the  familiar  songs,  Bribes  in  the  Woods,  Billy  Boy, 
and  The  Courtship  of  the  Frog  and  the  Mouse. 

The  foregoing  pieces  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  im- 
ported material,  its  diffusion,  persistence,  and  the  types  of 
plots  and  the  patterns  of  song  which  have  lingered  in  the 
popular  consciousness.  Among  Old  World  importations, 
it  is  the  sensational  story  song,  and  the  humorous  ballad 
or  song,  which  have  shown  the  greatest  vitality. 

n INDIGENOUS   BALLADS    AND    SONGS 

Alongside  importations  from  the  Old  World,  many 
types  of  indigenous  song  have  developed  in  America. 
There  are  picturesque  songs  of  pioneer  and  Western  life, 


202  BALLADRY  IN  AMERICA 

songs  of  criminals  and  outlaws,  of  soldiers  and  wars,  of 
tragedies  and  disasters,  songs  of  the  tragic  death  of  a 
girl,  dying  messages  and  confessions,  and  songs  of  the  lost 
at  sea.  Sentimental  songs  play  an  important  role,  and 
religious  and  moralizing  songs,  political  campaign  songs, 
humorous  songs,  and  negro  or  pseudo-negro  and  Indian 
songs  appear.  Some  of  these  are  sufficiently  narrative  to 
deserve  classification  as  ballads,  and  all  should  have  inter- 
est for  collectors.  Generalizations  concerning  folk-song 
are  thrown  out  of  focus  and  are  undependable  when  but 
one  type  of  piece  is  sought  out  and  studied.  All  types  of 
songs  are  folk-songs,  for  the  literary  historian,  which  ful- 
fill two  tests.  The  people  must  like  them  and  sing  them 
—  they  must  have  "  lived  in  the  folk-mouth  " —  and  they 
must  have  persisted  in  oral  currency  through  a  fair  period 
of  years.  They  must  have  achieved  an  existence  not 
dependent  upon  a  printed  original.  Questions  of  origin, 
quality,  technique,  or  style,  are  secondary.  Attempts  at 
differentiating  traditional  songs  into  popular  songs  or 
songs  made  "  for "  the  people,  and  folk-songs  or  songs 
made  "  by  "  the  people,  based  on  some  hypothetical  man- 
ner of  origin  or  on  the  continuation  of  a  mediaeval  style, 
have  been  demonstrated  many  times,  when  applied  to  some 
body  of  folk-song,  to  be  undependable  and  unsafe.  What- 
ever has  commended  itself  to  the  folk-consciousness  and 
has  established  currency  for  itself  apart  from  written 
sources  is  genuine  folk-literature. 

Before  the  American  Revolution,  most  folk-song  was 
probably  imported,  either  orally  or  in  broadside  versions ; 
but  there  were  also  historical  pieces  that  were  indigenous. 
Some  early  ballads  popular  in  New  England,  the  texts 
of  which  have  not  been  preserved  are:  The  Gallant 


INDIGENOUS  BALLADS  AND  SONGS     203 

Church^  Smith's  Affair  at  Sidelong  Hill,  and  The  God- 
less French  Soldier.8  Lovewell's  Fight  is  the  oldest  re- 
maining historical  ballad  composed  in  America  of  which 
texts  are  available.  It  records  a  contest  with  the  Indians 
in  Maine,  May  8,  1725.  A  text  put  into  print  about  a 
hundred  years  later  begins  — 

What  time  the  noble  Lovewell  came 
With  fifty  men  from  Dunstable 

The  cruel  Pequatt  tribe  to  tame 
With  arms  and  bloodshed  terrible  — 

This  theme  was  treated  by  Longfellow  in  his  early  poem, 
The  Battle  of  Lovell's  Pond. 

Most  of  the  songs  and  ballads  of  the  Revolution,  as 
brought  together  by  collectors  9  from  newspapers,  period- 
icals, and  broadsides,  and  from  the  memory  of  surviving 
soldiers,  are  semi-literary  in  character,  composed  to  be 
sung  to  some  familiar  tune  of  English  importation.  The 
favorite  ballad  of  the  Revolution  with  literary  historians 
is  Nathan  Hale.  Many  surviving  pieces  are  travesties, 
many  express  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  colonists,  and 
some  derive  from  older  pieces,  as  Major  Andre's  The  Cow 
Chace  which  is  based  on  the  familiar  ballad,  The  Chevy 
Chase.  Most  of  the  ballads  remaining  from  this  period 
are  satirical. 

A  few  indigenous  pieces  may  derive  from  the  War  of 
1812,  such  as  James  Bird,  a  ballad  of  a  hero  shot  for 
desertion,  a  camp  song  in  ridicule  of  General  Packing- 
ham,  and  some  verses  beginning  — 

s  See  Professor  M.  C.  Tyler,  History  of  American  Colonial  Liter- 
ature, 1878. 

•  Chief  among  them  is  Frank  Moore,  Songs  and  Ballads  of  the 
American  Revolution,  1856. 


204  BALLADRY  IN  AMERICA 

Then  you  sent  out  your  Boxer  to  beat  us  all  about; 
We  had  an  enterprising  brig  to  beat  the  Boxer  out.  .  .  . 
Then  towed  her  up  to  Portland  and  moved  her  off  the  town 
To  show  the  Sons  of  Liberty  the  Boxer  of  renown.  .  .  . 

and  some  stanzas  which  are  still  sung  by  children  as  a 
marching  song  — 

We're  marching  down  to  old  Quebec 
While  the  drums  are  loudly  beating; 
The  American  boys  have  gained  the  day 
And  the  British  are  retreating. 

The  Texas  Rangers,  widely  current  throughout  the 
South  and  West,  one  text  of  which  opens  — 

Come  all  you  Texas  Rangers  wherever  you  may  be, 

I'll  tell  you  of  some  trouble  which  happened  unto  me.  .  .  . 

sounds  like  an  echo  of  the  fight  with  the  Mexicans  at  the 
Alamo  in  1833.  It  is  modeled  on  and  sung  to  the  air 
of  the  British  Nancy  of  Yarmouth. 

Songs  remaining  from  the  Civil  War  are  often  sen- 
timental in  character,  like  When  this  Cruel  War  is  Over, 
and  The  Blue  and  the  Gray,  which  are  of  traceable  origin 
yet  have  entered  widely  into  oral  tradition.  They  are 
songs  not  ballads.  There  were  numerous  camp  songs  on 
sieges  or  battles  but  these  faded  early.  Best  remembered 
in  folk-song  from  the  period  of  the  Civil  War  are  the 
pseudo-negro  songs,  many  of  them  the  work  of  Stephen 
C.  Foster,  Will  S.  Hays,  or  Henry  C.  Work,  given  dif- 
fusion by  the  old-time  itinerant  minstrels.  Songs  of 
this  and  related  types  from  the  period  of  the  Civil  War 
are  far  more  persistent  than  songs  commemorating  bat- 
tles or  political  events.  The  popular  A  Hot  Time  in  the 
Old  Town  Tonight,  modeled  by  its  composer  on  a  Creole 


INDIGENOUS  BALLADS  AND  SONGS     205 

song  and  popularized  during  the  Cuban  War,  does  not 
reflect  directly  the  war  that  "  floated  "  it,  and  the  songs 
universalized  for  England  and  America  by  the  war  of 
1914-1918,  Tipperary,  Keep  the  Home  Fires  Burning, 
The  Long,  Long  Trail,  Pack  Up  Your  Troubles  in  Your 
Old  Kit  Bag,  Over  There,  do  not  commemorate  its  lead- 
ing events.  In  the  days  of  newspapers,  ballads  or  songs 
of  battles  or  important  political  events  are  not  in  demand, 
and  do  not  come  into  existence. 

Much  larger  than  the  role  played  by  songs  of  historical 
events  or  important  movements  is  that  played  by  senti- 
mental romantic  pieces  or  by  adventure  pieces,  and  by 
certain  widely  diffused  songs,  mainly  humorous,  their 
authorship  and  origin  forgotten,  which  reflect  emigrant 
and  frontier  life,  especially  the  rush  for  gold  in  1849. 
Such  is  Joe  Bowers,  once  a  freighter's  favorite.  The 
song  is  supposed  to  be  sung  by  a  Missourian  in  California 
about  1849-51,  who  had  left  behind  his  hometown  sweet- 
heart, Sally  Black.10 

One  day  I  got  a  letter, 

'Twas  from  my  brother  Ike; 
It  came   from   Old   Missouri. 

And  all  the  way  from  Pike.  .  .  . 
It  said  that  Sal  was  false  to  me  — 

It  made  me  cuss  and  swear  — 
How  she  went  and  married  a  butcher, 

And  the  butcher  had  red  hair; 
And  whether  'twas  gal  or  boy 

The  letter  never  said, 
But  that  Sally  had  a  baby, 

And  the  baby's  head  was  red. 

10  Unless  indication  otherwise  is  made,  the  text  quoted  is  central 
Western. 


206  BALLADKY  IN  AMEKICA 

Here  is  to  be  grouped  Sweet  Betsy  from  Pike,  a  Cali- 
fornia immigrant  song  of  the  fifties,  and  that  song  of 
better  quality,  The  Days  of  Forty-Nine. 

Since  the  days  of  old  and  the  days  of  gold, 
And  the  days  of  Forty-Nine. 

The  Dreary  Black  Hills  reflects  the  mining  fever  of  one 
period  in  the  West. 

The  Round  House  at  Cheyenne  is  filled  every  night 

With  loafers  and  beggars  of  every  kind  of  sight; 

On  their  backs  there's  no  clothes,  boys,  in  their  pockets  no  bills, 

And  they'll  take  off  your  scalp,  boys,  in  those  dreary  Black  Hills. 

Stay  away,  I  say,  stay  away  if  you  can, 

Far  from  that  city  they  call  Cheyenne; 

Where  the  blue  waters  roll  and  Comanche  Bill 

Will  take  off  your  scalp  in  those  dreary  Black  Hills. 

Other  sectional  songs  or  humorous  narratives  or  com- 
plaints are  Cheyenne  Boys,  which  has  various  aliases  and 
changed  locations,  as  Mississippi  Girls,  a  narrative  de- 
scribing the  ways  of  the  "  boys  "  and  warning  the  girls 
not  to  marry  them,  The  Horse  Wrangler,  who  meets  a 
cattle  king  and  decides  to  try  cow-punching,  and  Starv- 
ing to  Death  on  a  Government  Claim  — 

Hurrah  for  Lane  County,  the  land  of  the  West, 
Where  the  farmers  and  laborers  are  ever  at  rest; 
There's  nothing  to  do  but  to  stick  and  remain, 
And  starve  like  a  dog  on  a  government  claim. 

The  three  best  known  and  most  attractive  pieces  are  all 
three  adaptations,  reflecting  pioneer  life.  One  is  0  Bury 


INDIGENOUS  BALLADS  AND  SONGS     207 

Me  not  on  the  Lone  Prairie,  sometimes  called  The  Dying 

Cowboy,11 

"0  bury  me  not  on  the  lone  prairie." 

Those  words  came  slow  but  mournfully 

From  the  pallid  lips  of  a  youth  who  lay 

On  the  cold  damp  ground  at  the  close  of  day.  .  .  . 

Another  is  The  Cowboy's  Lament,  also  called  sometimes 
The  Dying  Cowboy  — 

As  I  walked  through  Tom  Sherman's  bar-room, 
Tom  Sherman's  bar-room  on  a  bright  summer's  day, 
There  I  spied  a  handsome  young  cowboy, 
All  dressed  in  white  linen  as  though  for  the  grave. 

Beat  your  drums  lowly  and  play  your  fife  slowly, 
Play  the  dead  march  as  you  bear  me  along, 
Take  me  to  the  graveyard  and  lay  the  sod  o'er  me, 
For  I'm  a  young  cowboy  and  I  know  I've  done  wrong. 

This  song  exists  in  many  variants,  with  changed  names 
and  localizations,  and  it  has  roamed  pretty  far  from  its 
eighteenth  century  original.12  The  third  is  My  Little 
Old  Sod  Shanty  — 

11  Adapted  from  a  sea  song,  the  words  of  which  were  by  W.  H. 
Saunders,  the  music  by  G.  N.  Allen,  beginning  — 

"  0  bury  me  not  in  the  deep,  deep  sea," 
The  words  came  low  and  mournfully,  etc. 

with  the  refrain 

"  0  bury  me  not  in  the  deep  deep  sea, 

Where  the  billowy  shroud  will  roll  o'er  me."  .  .  . 

12  Mr.  Phillips  Barry  has  traced  its  history  in   The  Journal  of 
American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  24,  pp.  341  ft".     It  is  from  a  song  popular 
in  Ireland  in  the  eighteenth  century,  The  Unfortunate  Rake.     The 
refrain  lines  retain,    somewhat   incongruously,   the  suggestion   of   a 
military  funeral  appropriate  enough  in  the  original  song. 


208  BALLADRY  IN  AMEKICA 

The  hinges  are  of  leather  and  the  windows  have  no  glass, 
While  the  board  roof  lets  the  howling  blizzard  in, 

And  I  hear  the  hungry  cayote  as  he  slinks  up  through  the  grass, 
Round  the  little  old  sod  shanty  on  my  claim. 

The  history  of  this  song  is  sufficiently  illustrative  of  the 
ways  of  folk-song  to  be  worth  recounting.13  Like  so 
many  "  Western  "  songs  when  their  genealogy  is  followed 
out,  it  is  not  an  indigenous  Western  piece  but  is  an 
adaptation  of  an  older  song  having  great  popularity, 
namely  The  Little  Old  Log  Cabin  in  the  Lane  by  Will  S. 
Hays,  a  negro  melody  of  the  type  familiarized  by  Stephen 
C.  Foster's  My  Old  Kentucky  Home,  or  by  The  Swanee 
River. 

De  hinges  dey  got  rusted  and  de  door  has  tumbled  down, 

An'  de  roof  lets  in  de  sunshine  an'  de  rain, 
An'  de  only  friend  I've  got  now  is  dis  good  old  dog  of  mine, 

In  de  little  old  log  cabin  in  de  lane. 

The  Little  Old  Sod  Shanty  was  printed  somewhere  about 
the  later  seventies  or  eighties  in  many  Nebraska  news- 
papers, with  the  statement  that  it  could  be  sung  to  the  tune 
of  The  Little  Old  Log  Cabin.  Some  old  settlers  remem- 
ber having  cards  with  photographs  of  a  sod  shanty  on 
one  side  and  on  the  other  the  words  of  the  song.  The 
parody  adapting  the  negro  song  to  Western  conditions 
was  written  probably  by  some  one  in  this  region.14 
Most  versions  of  the  song  recovered  by  collectors  come  from 
Nebraska  and  the  Dakotas,  one  from  Texas.  To  continue 
the  history  of  The  Little  Old  Log  Cabin,  it  is  said  that  Ira 

is  See  The  Pedigree  of  a.  Western  Song,  Modern  Language  Notes, 
vol.  29,  p.  30. 

i*  According  to  his  friends,  by  a  Nebraskan  named  Emery  Miller, 
when  occupying  a  claim. 


INDIGENOUS  BALLADS  AND  SONGS     209 

D.  Sankey,  the  evangelist,  adapted  its  well-known  melody 
for  C.  W.  Fry's  religious  lyric,T7ie  Lily  of  the  Valley,  or 
I  Have  Found  a  Friend  in  Jesus.  In  hymn  number  105 
of  Gospel  Hymns  No.  5,  widely  used  in  the  later  decades 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  may  be  found  the  music  which 
served  for  the  various  songs,  the  negro  melody,  and  the 
"  Western  "  and  the  religious  songs. 

There  is  little  "  romance  "  in  most  of  these  Western 
American  pieces  but  they  reflect  the  life  of  the  Americans 
who  sang  and  who  sing  them  as  faithfully  as  the  English 
and  Scottish  traditional  ballads  reflect  the  life  and  ways 
of  mediaeval  aristocrats.  They  are  the  most  character- 
istically American  of  our  folk-songs,  and  so  wide  is  their 
diffusion  that  m,any  are  likely  to  survive  for  a  genera- 
tion or  more.  They  exhibit  the  interests  and  tastes,  the 
themes  and  song  modes,  of  those  among  which  they  had 
currency. 

Aside  from  these  historical,  frontier,  and  adventure 
pieces,  there  are  now  many  short  narrative  pieces,  orally 
preserved  and  apparently  authorless,  which  may  fairly  be 
called  indigenous  ballads.  And  already  they  are  marked 
in  an  instructive  degree  by  fluctuation  of  text,  variant 
versions,  and  local  improvisations  and  additions.  Most 
have  a  direct  unsophisticated  note  and  traces  of  rude 
power  that  lend  them  the  appeal  peculiar  to  folk  song. 
An  example  of  an  indigenous  ballad  now  current  through 
the  Middle  West  and  as  far  Southwest  as  Texas  is  that 
of  Young  Charlotte  who  was  frozen  to  death  at  her  lover's 
side  on  her  way  to  a  ball. 

Young  Charlotte  lived  by  a  mountain  side  in  a  wild  and  lonely 

spot, 
There  was  no  village  for  miles  around  except  her  father's  cot; 


210  BALLADKY  IN  AMERICA 

And  yet  on  many  a  wintry  night  young  boys  would  gather  there  — 
Her  father  kept  a  social  board,  and  she  was  very  fair.  .  .  . 

"  Such  a  dreadful  night  I  never  saw,  my  reins  I  can  scarcely 

hold," 

Young  Charlottie  then  feebly  said,  "I  am  exceedingly  cold," 
He  cracked  his   whip   and   urged   his  speed  much  faster  than 

before, 
While  at  least  five  other  miles  in  silence  had  passed  o'er. 

Spoke    Charles,    "How   fast   the   freezing  ice   is   gathering   on 

my  brow," 
Young    Charlottie    then    feebly    said,    "I'm    growing    warmer 

now."  .  .  . 

Investigation  has  shown  that  this  ballad  was  the  com- 
position of  a  blind  poet  at  Bensontown,  Vermont,  as  far 
back  as  1835. 15  The  good  fortune  of  its  attracting  an 
able  investigator  has  cleared  up  for  us  its  history.  A 
second  New  England  product  which  has  roamed  every- 
where is  Springfield  Mountain,  the  tragedy  of  a  young 
man  mowing  hay  who  was  bitten  by  a  "  pizen  serpent " 
and  died.  Texts  of  this  have  been  recovered  from  regions 
as  remote  as  Texas  and  Montana.  Its  historian  was  able 
to  trace  its  composition  to  the  late  eighteenth  century.16 
Of  untraced  origin  but  of  still  greater  currency  is  Poor 
Lorella  (known  also  as  The  Weeping  Willow,  Poor  Flo- 
ella,  Flo  Ella,  Lurella,  Lorla,  Lorilla,  The  Jealous  Lover, 
Pearl  Bryn,  etc.).  Down  in  the  valley,  under  the  weep- 
ing willow,  lies  Lorella  in  her  "cold  and  silent  grave." 

is  See  Phillips  Barry,  The  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  22, 
pp.  365-73. 

IB  \v.  W.  Newell,  Early  American  Ballads,  The  Journal  of  Ameri- 
can Folk-Lore,  vol.  13,  pp.  105-120.  Rattlesnake  Song,  printed 
among  J.  A.  Lomax's  Cowboy  Songs,  is  obviously  a  somewhat 
maudlin  descendant  of  Springfield  Mountain. 


INDIGENOUS  BALLADS  AND  SONGS     211 

She  died  not  from  sickness  or  a  broken  heart,  but  was 
killed  by  her  lover,  who  says  that  her  parents  will  for- 
give him,  since  he  expects  to  leave  the  country  "  never 
more  for  to  return." 

Down  on  her  knees  before  him 

She  pleaded  for  her  life, 
But  deep   into  her  bosom 

He  plunged  the  fatal  knife. 

A  similar  piece,  also  untraced,  is  The  Old  Shawnee.  A 
youth  asks  his  sweetheart  to  take  a  walk,  and  talks  of  the 
day  when  their  wedding  is  to  be.  She  says  she  will 
never  be  his :  — 

From  my  breast  I  drew  a  knife, 

And  she  gave  a  shrilling  cry, 
"  0  Willie  dear,  don't  murder  me, 

For  I  am  not  prepared  to   die." 

Then  I  took  her  lily  white  hands 
And  swung  her  around  and  again  around, 

Until  she  fell  in  the  waters  cruel, 
And  there  I  watched  my  true  love  drowned. 

The  Silver  Dagger  tells  of  a  young  man  who  courted  a 
maiden,  but  his  parents  sought  to  part  them  on  the  ground 
of  her  poverty.  When  the  girl  learned  this  she  wan- 
dered down  by  a  river  and  stabbed  herself  with  a  silver 
dagger.  Her  lover  heard  her  voice,  rushed  to  her,  found 
her  dying,  and  killed  himself  with  the  same  dagger. 

To  pass  to  illustration  of  American  ballads  of  another 
type,  Jesse  James  claims  sympathy  for  its  outlaw  hero,  an 
American  Robin  Hood.  The  ballad  tells  of  his  death 
through  betrayal,  killed  by  Robert  Ford. 


212  BALLADEY  IN  AMERICA 

Now  Jesse  had  a  wife  to  mourn  for  his  life, 

His   children   they   were   brave; 
'Twas  a  dirty  little  coward  that  shot  Mr.  Howard 

And  laid  poor  Jesse  in  his  grave. 

This  song  is  of  late  composition  and  has  wide  currency 
but  chance  has  failed  to  record  its  provenance.  Texts 
and  the  melody  have  been  recovered  by  many  collectors. 
The  Death  of  Garfield  reflects  moralizing  delight  in  a 
criminal's  repentance,  a  stock  motive  in  eighteenth  and 
nineteenth  century  popular  song.  Probably  it  is  adapted 
from  an  Old  World  piece. 

My  sister  came  to  prison  to  bid  her  last  farewell, 
She  threw  her  arms  about  me  and  wept  most  bitterly; 
She  said,  "My  dearest  brother,  today  you  must  die, 
For  the  murder  of  James  A.  Garfield  upon  the  scafel  high." 

Fuller  and  Warren  tells  of  a  fatal  quarrel  between  rival 
lovers;  Casey  Jones,  of  the  authorship  of  which  there  is 
clearer  record,17  of  a  fatal  railway  run.  On'ce  well- 
known  ballads,  now  occasionally  to  be  recovered  from 
oral  tradition,  are  The  Wreck  of  the  Lady  Elgin,18  The 
Johnstown  Flood,  and  The  Burning  of  the  Newhall  House 
at  Milwaukee.  These  may  be  termed  ballads  in  that 
they  are  simple  lyrical  narratives  handed  down  orally, 
though  but  for  a  short  period,  their  authorship  unknown 
to  their  singers.  The  sensational  stories  they  tell  have 
kept  them  alive  for  a  while.  Usually  the  tenure  of  life 
of  a  ballad  is  longer  when  it  tells  some  tragic  personal 
story. 

17  See  Railroad  Men's  Magazine,  May  1908,  November  1910,  Decem- 
ber 1911,  April  1912. 
is  By  George  F.  Root. 


INDIGENOUS  3ALLADS  AND  SONGS     213 

As  to  modes  of  diffusion,  these  are  many  and  varied,  so 
far  as  can  be  determined  by  the  collector.  Fairs  or  cir- 
cuses at  which  broadsides  or  sheet  music  are  offered  for 
sale  have  served  as  agents  for  diffusion  in  recent  times, 
and  sb  have  itinerant  vendors  and  entertainers  of  all  kinds. 
Young  Charlotte  was  probably  given  its  impetus  by  its 
author  as  he  journeyed  from  Vermont  to  Ohio  and  thence 
to  Illinois,  on  his  way  westward,  singing  and  selling  his 
song  as  he  went.  Songs  learned  at  school  or  in  childhood 
stay  in  the  memory  with  especial  tenacity.  Some  of  the 
texts  of  Jesse  Jaynes  were  said  by  their  singers  to  have 
been  learned  by  them  as  school  children,  while  others 
said  that  they  had  learned  the  song  from  farm-hands. 
Country  newspapers  have  preserved  many  well-cherished 
pieces  later  pasted  into  scrap  books  which  have  been 
handed  down.  And,  though  rarely,  song-lovers  still  copy 
favorite  texts  into  scrapbooks,  as  in  Elizabethan  days. 
Wandering  concert  troups,  Chautauqua  singers,  and  minor 
singers  of  all  types,  stage  stars  especially,  are  great  agents 
in  popularization.  The  once  popular  negro  minstrels 
helped  to  universalize  many  songs,  like  Old  Black  Joe 
and  My  Old  Kentucky  Home,  and  real  negro  singers 
like  the  Jubilee  Singers  and  the  Hampton  Institute 
Singers  have  kept  alive  many  songs.  Those  familiar 
stage'  and  parlor  songs  of  the  1890's,  After  the  Ball  and 
Two  lAttle  Girls  in  Blue,  the  first  of  which  was  popular- 
ized all  over  the  country  by  May  Irwin  and  other  singers, 
in  Hoyt's  farce,  A  Trip  to  China  Town,19  are  still  vigor- 
ous on  Western  ranches  and  in  villages  here  and  there, 
though  they  have  long  been  dead  in  the  circles  and  places 
where  they  emerged.  Shortened  Bread,  which  still  has 
i»  See  C.  K.  Harris,  How  to  Write  a  Popular  Lyric,  1906. 


214  BALLADKY  IN  AMEKICA 

wide  currency  in  folk-song,  among  both  whites  and  negroes, 
was  one  of  Blind  Boone's  songs.  Johnny  Sands  belongs 
to  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  achieved 
enormous  vogue  by  forming  part  of  the  repertory  of  the 
Hutchinson  family,  the  Continental  vocalists,  and  other 
singing  troupes.  It  was  printed  in  1847.  A  striking 
melody,  or  a  striking  text  or  story,  usually  a  personal 
story,  given  some  strong  impetus  in  diffusion,  will  linger 
in  the  folk-memory  for  decades,  when  not  the  faintest 
consciousness  of  its  provenance  remains.  As  with  im- 
portations from  the  Old  World,  so  with  indigenous  folk- 
songs, a  piece  telling  a  sensational  story,  or  turning  on 
some  comic  situation,  or  built  about  some  striking  refrain, 
outlasts  songs  of  other  types. 

HI THE    SOUTHWESTERN    COWBOY    SONGS    AND    THE 

ENGLISH    AND    SCOTTISH    BALLADS 

That  a  body  of  folk-song  exists  in  America  which  sup- 
ports the  theory  of  "  communal "  origin  for  the  English 
and  Scottish  popular  ballads  is  an  idea  which  has  made 
considerable  headway  since  it  was  advanced  not  many 
years  ago.  Several  writers  have  found  analogy  between 
the  conditions  attending  the  growth  of  cowboy  songs  in 
isolated  communities  in  the  Southwest,  and  the  conditions 
under  which  arose  the  English  and  Scottish  popular  bal- 
lads. Said  Mr.  John  A.  Lomax,  in  a  paper  given  by  him 
when  retiring  president  of  the  American  Folk-Lore  So- 
ciety, at  its  annual  meeting,  "  There  has  sprung  up  in 
America  a  considerable  body  of  folk-song  called  by 
courtesy  'ballads,'  which  in  their  authorship,  in  the 
social  conditions  under  which  they  were  produced,  in  the 


THE  SOUTHWESTERN  COWBOY  SONGS     215 

spirit  which  gives  them  life,  resemble  the  genuine  ballads 
sung  by  our  English  and  Scottish  ancestors  long  before 
there  was  an  American  people "  .  .  .  "  The  Ballad  of 
the  Boll  Weevil  and  The  Ballad  of  the  Old  Chisholm 
Trail,  and  other  songs  in  my  collection  similar  to  these, 
are  absolutely  known  to  have  been  composed  by  groups 
of  people  whose  community  life  made  their  thinking  sim- 
ilar, and  present  valuable  corroborative  evidence  of  the 
theory  advanced  by  Professor  Gummere  and  Professor 
Kittredge  concerning  the  origin  of  the  ballads  from  which 
come  those  now  contained  in  the  great  Child  collection."  20 
This  view  was  first  put  forward  by  Mr.  Lomax,  who  is 
the  chief  collector  of  Southwestern  folk-song,  in  the  intro- 
duction of  his  Cowboy  Songs.21     He  notes  when  speaking 
of  western  communities,  how  "  illiterate  people  and  people 
cut  off  from  newspapers  and  books,  isolated  and  lonely  — 
thrown  back  on  primal  resources  for  entertainment  and 
for  the  expression  of  emotion  —  utter  themselves  through 
somewhat  the  same  character  of  songs  as  did  their  fore- 
fathers of  perhaps  a  thousand  years  ago."     Professor  Bar- 
rett Wendell 22  suggested  that  it  is  possible  to  trace  in  this 
group  of  American  ballads  "  the  precise  manner  in  which 
songs  and  cycles  of  songs  —  obviously  analogous  to  those 
surviving   from   older   and    antique   times  —  have   come 
into  being.     The  facts  which  are  still  available  concern- 
ing the  ballads  of  our  own  Southwest  are  such  as  should 
go  far  to  prove  or  to  disprove  many  of  the  theories  ad- 
vanced concerning  the  laws  of  literature  as  evinced  in 

20  Published  in  the  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  vol.  28,  Janu- 
ary-March, 1915.    For  the  quoted  sentences,  see  pp.  1  and  16. 

21  New  York,  1910.     Second  edition,  1916. 

22  Cowboy  Songs.     Introduction. 


216  BALLADKY  IN  AMERICA 

the  ballads  of  the  Old  World."  Ex-President  Eoosevelt 
affirmed  in  a  personal  letter  to  Mr.  Lomax  23  that  "  there 
is  something  very  curious  in  the  reproduction  here  on 
this  new  continent  of  essentially  the  conditions  of  ballad- 
growth  which  obtained  in  mediaeval  England." 

The  parallel  felt  by  these  writers  is  worked  out  with 
more  specific  detail  and  greater  definiteness  by  Professor 
W.  W.  Lawrence,  in  a  passage  prefixed  to  a  discussion 
of  the  ballads  of  Robin  Hood  :  —  24 

These  men  living  together  on  the  solitary  ranches  of  Texas, 
Arizona,  or  New  Mexico,  have  been  accustomed  to  entertain 
each  other  after  the  day's  work  is  done  by  singing  songs,  some  of 
which  have  been  familiar  to  them  from  boyhood,  others  of 
which  they  have  actually  composed  themselves.  .  .  .  These  cow- 
boy ballads  are  not  the  expression  of  individuals  but  of  the 
whole  company  which  listens  to  them,  and  they  are,  in  a  very  real 
sense,  the  work  of  other  men  than  the  author.  .  .  .  The  author 
counts  for  nothing,  it  will  be  observed;  his  name  is  generally 
not  remembered,  and  what  he  invents  is  as  characteristic  of  his 
comrades  as  of  himself.  .  .  .  Here  we  have  literature  which  is  a 
perfect  index  of  the  social  ideals  of  the  body  of  men  among  whom 
it  is  composed,  literature  which  makes  no  pretense  to  literary 
form  or  to  the  disclosure  of  the  emotions  of  any  one  man  as 
distinguished  from  his  fellows.  There  are  few  communities  of 
the  present  day  which  are  as  closely  united  in  common  aims  and 
sympathies  as  these  bands  of  Western  cowboys,  hence  there  are 
few  opportunities  for  the  production  of  verse  which  is  as  truly 
the  expression  of  universal  emotion  as  are  these  songs. 

Such  Western  ranches  reproduce  almost  perfectly  the  condi- 
tions under  which  the  English  and  Scottish  ballads  were  com- 
posed. 


Prefixed  letter,  dated  from  Cheyenne,  1910.  See  also 
Professor  Charles  S.  Baldwin,  English  Mediceval  Literature  (1914) 
p.  19. 

24  Medieval  Story.     New  York,  1911. 


THE  SOUTHWESTERN  COWBOY  SONGS     217 

It  is  obvious  from  these  passages  that  their  writers  find 
a  real  parallel  between  the  conditions  leading  to  the 
the  growth  in  our  own  time,  in  certain  homogenous  com- 
munities of  the  Southwest,  of  fugitive  folk-pieces  like 
those  gathered  by  Mr.  Lomax,  and  the  conditions  respon- 
sible for  the  rise  in  the  Middle  Ages  of  the  traditional 
ballads  of  England  and  Scotland.  It  is  the  belief  that 
certain  types  of  American  folk-song  support  the  theory 
of  "  communal  "  composition  of  "  genuine  "  English  and 
Scottish  ballads,  as  expounded  in  many  places  by  Profes- 
sor Gummere  and  Professor  Kittredge,  a  belief  upheld  by 
their  Harvard  disciples,  Mr.  Lomax,  Professor  Walter 
Morgan  Hart,25  Professor  W.  W.  Lawrence,  and  by  others. 
That  ignorant  and  uneducated  people  may  fairly  be  said 
to  have  composed,  or  had  a  part  in  composing,  some  of 
the  cowboy,  lumberman,  and  negro  songs,  is  held  to  be 
evidence  that  ignorant  and  unlearned  peasants  or  villagers 
composed,  or  had  a  part  in  composing,  the  English  and 
Scottish  popular  ballads,  or  at  least  that  they  established 
the  type. 

A  good  case  can  be  made  out,  from  examining  such 
material  as  Mr.  Lomax  has  cited  or  published,  to  exactly 
the  contrary  effect  —  namely  that  the  American  pieces 
which  he  finds  to  be  communally  composed,  or  at  least  to 
have  emerged  from  the  ignorant  and  unlettered  in  iso- 
lated regions,  afford  ample  testimony,  in  structure,  tech- 
nique, style,  and  quality,  that  the  English  and  Scottish 
popular  ballads  could  not  have  been  so  composed,  nor  their 

25  Ballad  and  Epic  (1907),  Harvard  Studies  and  Notes  in  Phil- 
ology and  Literature,  vol.  IV.  See  also  Publications  of  the  Mod- 
ern language  Association  of  America,  vol.  21  (1906),  and  English 
Popular  Ballads,  1916. 


218  BALLADKY  IN  AMERICA 

type  so  established.  Here,  in  summary,  are  the  leading 
reasons  for  this  affirmation :  — 

First.  The  greater  part  of  Mr.  Lomax's  material  in 
his  Cowboy  Songs  did  not  originate  among  the  cowboys 
but  migrated  among  them,  brought  from  different  parts 
of  the  United  States,  or  from  the  Old  World.  Especially, 
the  better  pieces  among  them  are  those  most  certainly  not 
indigenous  to  the  Southwest. 

Second.  The  pieces  which  may  fairly  be  said  to  be 
of  spontaneous  cowboy  improvisation  are  not  and  never 
will  become  real  ballads,  lyric-epics,  or  stories  in  verse. 
They  are  easily  the  weakest  and  most  structureless  pieces 
in  the  collection.  They  have  won  and  will  win  no  dif- 
fusion; and  many  are  probably  already  dead.  Certainly 
they  stand  no  such  chance  of  survival  as  do  certain  pieces, 
not  of  communal  origin,  which  have  drifted  to  the  South- 
west from  elsewhere,  commended  themselves  to  the  folk- 
consciousness  of  that  region,  and  retained  vitality  there 
as  in  other  parts  of  the  country. 

Third.  Even  the  pieces  which  may  be  called  genuine 
cowboy  pieces  are  no  doubt  largely  adaptations,  echoes 
of  some  familiar  model,  or  built  on  and  containing  rem- 
iniscences of  well-known  texts  or  airs.  For  the  most 
part  they  may  be  termed  "  creations  "  in  a  qualified  sense 
only. 

Fourth.  In  general,  real  communalistic  or  people's 
poetry,  composed  in  the  collaborating  manner  sketched  out 
by  Professor  Gummere  and  Professor  Kittredge,26  is  too 
crude,  too  structureless,  too  unoriginal,  too  lacking  in 

2«  By  Professor  Kittredge  in  Introduction  to  English  and  Scottish 
Popular  Ballads,  pp.  xxiv-xxvii.  1904.  By  Professor  Gummere  in 
many  books  and  articles. 


THE  SOUTHWESTERN  COWBOY  SONGS     219 

coherence  and  in  striking  or  memorable  qualities,  to  have 
much  chance  at  survival.  If  a  piece  is  to  win  wide  cur- 
rency, to  become  fixed  in  the  folk-memory,  or  get  beyond 
the  locality  which  produced  it,  it  must  have  strong  im- 
petus behind  it.  This  may  come  through  its  peculiar 
timeliness,  or  through  its  preoccupation  with  a  notable 
personality.  It  may  come  as  a  result  of  tunefulness,  a 
memorable  story,  or  striking  style,  or,  again,  through 
some  especially  potent  method  of  diffusion.27  But  the  im- 
petus must  be  present  if  the  piece  is  to  get  itself  remem- 
bered, and  to  make  its  way  over  the  country  as  a  whole. 
Most  of  these  qualities  are  what  the  well-attested  commu- 
nal improvisations,  or  creations,  those  upon  which  we 
can  place  the  finger,  always  lack.  They  have  little  chance 
at  securing  the  momentum  necessary  to  "  float "  them, 
as  compared  with  the  songs  of  the  old-time  itinerant 
negro-minstrels, —  for  example,  "  Old  Dan  "  Emmett's, 
Buckley's,  the  Ethiopian  Serenaders',  the  Fisk  Jubilee 
Singers',28 —  or  even  as  compared  with  such  popular  par- 

27  The  Ulster  ballad,  Willie  Reilly,  which  has  gained  considerable 
diffusion   in  this   country,  owed  its  wide  currency  to   the   circum- 
stance that  it  was  adopted  as  a  party  song.     For  the  mode  of  dif- 
fusion of  various  other  pieces,  see  p.  213. 

28  Some  idea  of  their  vogue  may  be  had  from  Brander  Matthews's 
article,  "  The  Rise  and  Fall  of  Negro  Minstrelsy,"  Scribner's  Maga- 
zine, June,  1915. 

Some  of  the  popular  old-time  minstrel  songs  have  been  ritualized 
into,  or  utilized  as  game-songs,  or  "  play-party  "  songs,  as  the  now 
widely  diffused  Old  Dan  Tucker,  by  Daniel  Emmett,  or  Angelina 
Baker,  by  S.  C.  Foster,  or  many  others.  See  Mrs.  L.  D.  Ames, 
"  The  Missouri  Play-Party,"  Goldy  M.  Hamilton,  "  The  Play-Party  in 
Northeast  Missouri,"  and  E.  F.  Piper,  "Some  Play-Party  Games 
of  the  Middle  West,"  printed  respectively  in  The  Journal  of  Ameri- 
can Folk-Lore,  vols.  xxiv,  xxvn,  and  xxvin.  Some  of  the  English 
nnd  Scottish  ballads  sung  in  America  have  been  similarly  ritual- 
ized. 


220  BALLADRY  IN  AMERICA 

lor  airs  as  Juanita,  Lorena,  or  to  songs  borne  onward  by 
some  notable  contemporary  event,  as  was  A  Hot  Time  by 
the  Cuban  War,  or  Tipperary  by  the  European  War. 
Suppose  that  a  piece  communally  improvised  did  win 
stability  once  in  a  while,  the  instance  would  be  a  rare  case 
as  over  against  the  folk-songs  in  established  currency 
which  did  not  so  originate.  But  who  (and  Mr.  Lomax 
has  not)  has  certainly,  not  conjecturally,  pointed  out  for 
America  a  good  ballad,  i.  e.,  verse-story,  which  did  orig- 
inate communally  and  has  also  obtained  widespread  dif- 
fusion ? 

Fifth.  A  hypothesis  is  surely  questionable  which  sets 
up  as  standard-giving  for  the  form,  type,  and  genuineness 
of  the  mass  of  folk-pieces,  and  as  accounting  for  their 
quality  and  diffusion,  a  mode  of  origin  responsible,  not 
for  folk-song  in  general,  but  at  most  for  a  few  highly  ex- 
ceptional instances. 

It  is  time  to  examine  a  few  well-attested  communal 
pieces  and  to  note  what  they  are  like.  A  certain  percent- 
age of  the  songs  in  the  collection  of  Mr.  Lomax  are  per- 
haps genuine  cowboy  pieces  approached  from  almost  any 
point  of  view.  Those  which  are  most  typical  are  related 
very  closely  to  the  life  of  the  communities  which  origin- 
ated and  preserved  them.  Some  of  these,  the  editor  tells 
us,  the  singers  themselves  composed.  There  are  songs 
dealing  with  the  life  of  the  ranch,  of  the  trail,  songs 
of  stampedes,  of  the  barroom;  but  chiefly  they  deal 
with  cattle  and  the  cowboys  who  have  them  in  charge. 
There  are  a  few  passing  references  to  their  "  bosses " ; 
but  songs  which  pertain  to  these,  or  to  the  ranch  owners, 
songs  of  the  lives  of  their  employers  or  their  families,  do 


THE  SOUTHWESTERN  COWBOY  SONGS     221 

not  appear.  A  few  preserve  the  style  of  the  ultra-senti- 
mental or  "  flowery  "  period  of  American  verse,29  with 
doubtfully  Westernized  settings,  a  few  are  ascribed  to  per- 
sonal authors,80  and  some  are  plainly  built  on  or  out  of 
well-known  songs.  Of  what  may  be  termed  the  real  cow- 
boy pieces  the  following  verses,  cited  as  representative  by 
Professor  Lawrence  also,  will  give  a  good  idea :  — 

I'm  a  rowdy  cowboy  just  off  the  stormy  plains, 
My  trade  is  girting  saddles  and  pulling  bridle  reins, 
Oh,  I  can  tip  the  lasso,  it  is  with  graceful  ease; 
I  rope  a  streak  of  lightning,  and  ride  it  where  I  please. 
My  bosses  they  all  like  me,  they  say  I  am  hard  to  beat; 
I  give  them  the  bold  stand  off,  you  bet  I  have  got  the  cheek. 
I  always  work  for  wages,  my  pay  I  get  in  gold; 
I  am  bound  to  follow  the  longhorn  steer  until  I  am  too  old. 
Ci  yi  yip   yip  yip  pe  ya. 

Or- 

Come  all  you  jolly  cowboys  that  follow  the  bronco  steer, 
I'll  sing  to  you  a  verse  or  two  your  spirits  for  to  cheer  j 
It's  all  about  a  trip,  a  trip  that  I  did  undergo 
On  that  crooked  trail  to  Holbrook,  in  Arizona  oh. 

Or  — 

Bill  driv  the  stage  from  Independence 

Up  to  the  Smokey  Hill; 

And  everybody  knowed  him  thar 

As  Independence  Bill. — 

Thar  warn't  no  feller  on  the  route 

That  driv  with  half  the  skill. 

The  song  specificially  cited  by  Mr.  Lomax,  in  his  article,31 

29  By  Markentura's  Flowery  Marge,  p.  224 ;  or  the  story  of 
Amanda  and  Young  Albon,  p.  271. 

ao  Night-Herding  Song,  p.  324;  or  The  Metis  Song  of  the  Buffalo 
Hunters,  p.  72. 

si  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  xxvm,  cvii,  p.  16. 


222  BALLADRY  IN  AMERICA 

as  certainly  of  communal  composition  is  The  Old  Chis- 
holm  Trail,  a  text  of  which  is  printed  in  his  Cowboy 
Songs.32  Here  are  its  final  stanzas: 

"I  went  to  the  wagon  to  get  my  roll, 
To  come  back  to  Texas,  dad-burn  my  soul. 

"I  went  to  the  boss  to  draw  my  roll, 

He  had  it  figgered  out  I  was  nine  dollars  in  the  hole. 

"I'll  sell  my  outfit  just  as  soon  as  I  can, 
I  won't  punch  cattle  for  no  damned  man. 

"Goin'  back  to  town  to  draw  my  money, 
Goin'  back  home  to  see  my  honey. 

"With  my  knees  in  the  saddle  and  my  seat  in  the  sky, 
I'll  quit  punching  cows  in  the  sweet  by  and  by." 

The  rest  of  the  piece  is  of  the  same  pattern,  or  at  least 
is  no  better.  Few  would  dispute  its  cowboy  composi- 
tion.33 Probably  it  too  follows  some  model;  but  it  is 

32  It  should  somewhere  be  said  of  Cowboy  Songs  that  it  was  ob- 
viously put  together  rather  with  an  eye  to  the  picturesque  and  ef- 
fective than  with  an  eye  to  affording  material  for  the  solution  of 
problems  in  literary  history.  Mr.  Lomax  points  this  out  when  he 
terms  it  "  frankly  popular."  He  seems  to  have  drawn  on  sources 
of  all  kinds  for  his  materials. 

83  Usually  local  individual  claims  to  the  authorship  of  popular 
pieces  of  much  diffusion  should  be  accepted  with  especial  caution. 
Those  having  practical  experience  in  the  collection  of  folk-songs 
need  not  be  reminded  that  many  pieces  are  claimed  as  of  individual 
composition,  in  outlying  regions,  which  had  no  such  origin  —  unless 
for  certain  added  personal  tags,  insertions,  manipulations,  or  local- 
izings.  Mistaken  affirmations  of  authorship  are  very  common.  For 
example,  Starving  to  Death  on  a  Government  Claim,  which  has,  and 
has  had,  considerable  currency  in  the  central  west,  was  volunteered, 
as  of  his  own  recent  composition,  to  a  collector  by  a  Dakota  lad  of 


THE  SOUTHWESTERN  COWBOY  SONGS     223 

plainly  enough  the  work  of  some  one  uneducated  and  un- 
trained. It  is  crude,  without  structure  or  clearly  told 
story,  is  flat  and  vulgar  in  language,  and  is  without  strik- 
ing or  memorable  quality.  It  has  not  a  single  mark  of  the 
"  good,"  or  "  genuine "  ballads  of  the  Child  collection, 
supposed  to  have  won  their  type,  their  peculiar  quality 
and  worth,  from  the  very  humbleness  of  their  composers.34 
The  Old  Chisholm  Trail  is  not  and  never  will  be  anything 
like  a  Child  ballad,  or  like  any  other  memorable  ballad. 
It  is  just  about  what  we  should  expect  from  cowboy  im- 
provisation. Yet  it  is  a  piece  definitely  pointed  out  as 
furnishing  "  corroborative  evidence." 

The  songs  in  Mr.  Lomax's  collection  which  do  have 
memorable  quality  and  have  shown  vitality,  which  afford 
the  truer  analogy  for  the  Old  World  pieces,  are  of  the 
type  of  Young  Charlotte,  The  Dying  Cowboy,  The  Lone 
Prairie,  The  Little  Old  Sod  Shanty,  and  for  these  such 
composition  cannot  be  claimed.35 

Our  Western  cowboys  are  at  least  as  intelligent  and  as 

fifteen;  and  his  authorship  was  accepted  by  his  community.  Yet 
all  he  had  contributed  was  the  localizing  of  a  few  names.  Breaking 
in  a  Tenderfoot,  reported  to  the  present  writer  as  of  local  composi- 
tion near  Cheyenne,  proved  to  be  a  rather  weak  variant  of  the  well- 
known  The  Horse  Wrangler,  too  weak  and  garbled  to  have  been 
by  any  chance  the  original  text.  A  teacher  once  gave  the  present 
writer  the  familiar  counting-out  formula,  "  Wire,  briar,  limberlock, 
Three  geese  in  a  flock,"  etc.  (really  an  importation  from  the  Old 
World ) ,  as  certainly  of  her  own  creation  in  childhood ;  —  this  in  the 
sincere  belief  that  it  had  so  originated. 

s*  It  is  well  to  remember  that  not  all  humble  composers  are  by  any 
means  either  so  unskilled  or  so  wholly  uneducated  that  expressions 
like  "  artistry  "  or  "  conscious  authorship  "  are  out  of  the  question 
when  their  creations  are  considered.  Burns  himself  was  a  plough- 
boy,  the  son  of  a  peasant  farmer. 

»5  For  their  origin,  see  pp.  207-209. 


224  BALLADEY  IN  AMEKICA 

generally  gifted  as  the  mediaeval  peasant  throngs  who  are 
supposed  to  have  created  the  Old  World  ballads,  and  they 
make  a  more  homogeneous  community.  When  we  note 
what  they  can  do  and  are  asked  to  believe  what  the  medi- 
seval  peasants  did  —  for  the  older  the  Child  ballads  the 
better  the  quality  —  we  meet  insurmountable  difficulties. 
The  evidence  offered  for  the  supposed  communal  origin  of 
the  Child  ballads  is  not  "corroborative  "  but  the  contrary. 
We  know  definitely  what  is  the  best  that  the  cowboys  can 
do;  but  when  we  compare  their  products  with  the  Child 
ballads  there  is  almost  unbelievable  discrepancy. 

One  other  piece  has  been  definitely  stated  by  Mr. 
Lomax  to  be  certainly  of  communal  origin,  the  negro  song 
The  Boll  Weevil.  It  originated  in  the  last  fifteen  years, 
he  says,  and  was  composed  by  plantation  negroes.  He 
quotes  but  one  verse  of  it. 

"If  anybody  axes  you  who  writ  this  song 
Tell  'em  it  was  a  dark-skinned  nigger 
Wid  a  pair  of  blue-duckins  on 
A-lookin  fur  a  home, 
Jes  a-lookin  fur  a  home." 

Apparently  the  Ballet  of  the  Boll  Weevil  is  a  loose- 
structured,  shifting,  drifting  sort  of  piece,  having  like  The 
Old  Chisholm  Trail,  nothing  in  common  with  "  good  " 
ballads,  and  not  likely  to  have.  It  is  very  much  what 
we  should  expect  of  a  song  which  emerged  from  unlettered 
negroes.  And  one  would  like  to  inquire  whether  it  still 
lives,  flourishes,  and  shows  promise  of  improvement,36  or 
whether  it  is  already  dead  ? 

38  What  songs  will  persist  among  the  negroes  ?  After  hearing  the 
Tuskegee  or  the  Hampton  Institute  singers,  one  feels  that  My  Old 
Kentucky  Home,  The  Swanee  River,  Old  Black  Joe,  and  some  of  the 


THE  SOUTHWESTERN  COWBOY  SONGS     225 

Once  more,  the  very  pieces  pointed  out  as  giving  cor- 
roborative evidence  are  among  the  weakest  in  Mr.  Lomax's 
collection.  Always  those  upon  which  we  can  place  the 
finger  as  pieces  in  the  composition  of  which  the  folk  had 
part  are  those  relatively  weak  and  flat,  giving  no  promise 
of  a  future.  The  communal  pieces  generally  have  no  def- 
inite narrative  element,  and  they  have  neither  the  struc- 
ture nor  the  poetic  quality  of  the  lyric-epics  that  consti- 
tute the  Child  collection.  If  a  piece  which  is  of  folk- 
composition  may  occasionally  show  this  poetic  power  it 
is  because  it  adapts  or  follows  closely  some  good  model. 
But  in  such  case  it  could  hardly  be  said  to  be  wholly  a 
folk-creation,  or  to  owe  its  good  qualities  precisely  to  the 
"  folk  "  share  in  its  creation.  Once  more,  too,  why  should 
we  suppose  that  human  ability  has  so  fallen  since  the 
middle  ages  that  untaught  throngs  could  then  outdo  the 
best  produced  by  similar  throngs  upon  which  we  can  place 
the  finger  nowadays  ?  If  we  keep  our  eyes  on  the  evi- 
dence, the  Child  pieces  are  by  far  too  good  to  have  had 

comic  songs  of  the  older  minstrelsy  will  have  a  far  better  chance 
at  lingering  among  them  than  will  the  inconsequent  creations  emerg- 
ing from  the  "  communal  improvisation  "  of  the  negroes  themselves. 
It  is  of  interest  to  find  among  the  songs  and  fragments  of  songs 
collected  from  the  country  whites  and  negroes  of  the  South  (see 
"  Songs  and  Rhymes  from  the  South,"  by  E.  C.  Perrow,  The  Journal 
of  American  Folk-Lore,  April-June,  1915),  fragments  or  stray 
stanzas  to  be  found  in,  and  probably  "  floated"  by,  G.  W.  Dixon'a 
Zip  Coon  (viii,  69),  joined  with  a  verse  of  T.  Rice's  old  minstrel 
song  Clare  de  Kitchen,  Stephen  C.  Foster's  Camptoton  Races,  or 
Owine  to  Run  All  Night  (vi,  16),  De  Boatman's  Dance  (vii,  26) 
sung  by  the  Ethiopian  Serenaders,  and  the  former  minstrel  favorites 
Lucy  Neal  (viii,  62)  and  Lucy  Long  (viii,  70).  The  one-time  popu- 
lar song  I'll  Not  Marry  at  All  is  represented  in  many  stanzas,  and 
there  are  bits  of  other  popular  songs,  of  Mother  Goose  rhymes,  and 
of  glee  club  and  college  songs. 


226  BALLADRY  IN  AMERICA 

their  origin  in  any  way  parallel  to  that  which  produced 
The  Old  Chisholm  Trail  and  The  Boll  Weevil 

Before  leaving  the  matter  of  corroborative  evidence,  it 
may  be  well  to  bring  up  more  support  for  the  statement 
that  the  bulk  of  Mr.  Lomax's  pieces  are  not  of  cowboy 
composition  but  immigrated  among  the  cowboys.  Young 
Charlotte,  The  Dying  Cowboy,  The  Lone  Prairie,  The 
Little  Old  Sod  Shanty,  The  Rattlesnake,  are  not  of  cowboy 
composition  but  are  immigrants.  Bonnie  Black  Bess  tells 
of  the  deeds  of  Dick  Turpin,  the  highwayman,  and  is  an 
Old  World  piece;  and  so  are  Fair  Fannie  More,  Rosin  the 
Bow,  The  Wars  of  Germanic,  and  Love  in  Disguise. 
The  Old  Man  Under  the  Hill  is  a  variant  of  a  Child  bal- 
lad.37 Jack  Donahoo  tells  of  an  Australian  highwayman 
and  is  obviously  imported.  A  Rambling  Cowboy  and 
Lackey  Bill  seem  to  be  the  same  piece,  and  to  be  identical 
with  E.  C.  Perrow's  When  I  Became  a  Rover,  also  of  Old 
World  importation.38  As  for  The  Railroad  Corral,  which 
might  seem  so  certainly  a  cowboy  song,  except  that  it  is  so 
well  done,  Mr.  J.  M.  Hanson,  writing  from  Yankton, 
South  Dakota,  to  the  Literary  Digest,  April  25,  1914,  says 
that  it  was  written  by  him  to  the  tune  of  Scott's  Bonny 
Dundee,  was  originally  published  in  Frank  Leslie's  Mag- 
azine, and  may  be  found  in  republished  form  in  his 
Frontier  Ballads.  Mr.  Hanson  was  somewhat  surprised 
to  find  his  poem  counting  as  "  folk-song."  Another  piece 
well  executed  for  folk-song  and  dealing  apparently  with 
genuine  cowboy  material  is  The  Ride  of  Billy  Venero. 
But  this,  with  a  few  localizings  and  adaptations,  is  umnis- 

37  NO.  278. 

ss  "  Songs  and  Rhymes  from  the  South,"  The  Journal  of  American 
Folk-Lore,  April-June,  1915,  p.  161. 


THE  SOUTHWESTERN"  COWBOY  SONGS     227 

takably  The  Ride  of  Paid  Venarez  by  Eben  E.  Kexford. 
Mr.  Kexford  also  might  well  have  felt  surprise  that  his 
spirited  narrative  should  count  as  anonymous  folk-song. 
The  Ride  of  Paul  Venarez  had  wide  currency,  after  its 
original  publication  in  The  Youth's  Companion,  and  was 
long  a  favorite  with  reciters.     Another  striking  piece  is 
Freighting  from  Wilcox  to  Glebe,  having  the  burden  "  And 
it's  home  dearest,  home,  and  it's  home  you  ought  to  be," 
of  W.  E.  Henley's  Falmouth  is  a-  Fine  Town  (Poems, 
1886),  which  in  turn  derived  its  refrain  from  a  song  by 
Allan  Cunningham.     Whoopee-Ti-Yi-Yo,  Git  Along  Lit- 
tle Dogies  owes  its  melody   and  the  opening  lines  to 
The  Cowboy's  Lament  of  some  pages  earlier,  which,  as 
Mr.   Phillips  Barry  has  pointed   out,   is  an  Old  World 
song   adapted   to   plainsmen's   conditions.     Buena   Vista 
Battlefield   was   a   favorite   parlor   song,    and   is  not   of 
cowboy    composition.     The    Boston    Burglar,    Macaffie's 
Confession,  Betsy  from  Pike,  Jesse  James,  The  Days  of 
Forty-Nine,  and  many  other  of  the  most  interesting  and 
widely  current  or  memorable  pieces,  cannot  be  claimed 
as  indigenous  to  the  Southwest  (nor  is  this  claim  made  for 
them)  ;  nor  is  there  any  real  proof  that  any  one  of  them 
is  of  communal  composition.     Many  are  not  ready  to  con- 
cede such  origin  for  them.     The  influence  of  Irish  "  Come 
all  ye's  "  and  of  death-bed  confession  pieces  is  strong  on 
pretty  much  the  whole  of  Mr.   Lomax's  collection;   and 
there  are  abundant  reminiscences  of  well-known  pieces, 
as  We'll  Go  no  More  A-Ranging  (compare  Byron's  We'll 
Go  no  More  A-Roaming,"  itself  a  reminiscence),  or  The 
Last  Longhorn,  reminiscent  of  Bingen  on  the  Rhine.59 

8»  Adaptation  of  something  familiar  is  the  first  instinct  in  popu- 
lar   improvisation.     Two  recent   examples    from   Nebraska   may   be 


228  BALLADKY  IN  AMEEICA 

Among  the  pieces  cited  by  Mr.  Lomax  in  his  address 
before  the  Folk-Lore  Society  is  Unreconstructed  (included 
in  Cowboy  Songs  under  the  title  I'm  a  Good  Old  Rebel)) 
which  he  cites  as  a  "  rebel  war  song,"  with  the  suggestion 

cited.  Well-known  among  the  homesteaders  of  the  Sandhill  region 
is  The  Kinkaider's  Song,  which  tells  of  their  life,  and  celebrates 
Congressman  Moses  P.  Kinkaid,  the  author  of  the  homestead  law. 
The  piece  is  built  on  and  sung  to  the  tune  of  My  Maryland.  For 
a  second  example,  let  an  Omaha  paper  of  July  7,  1915,  be  quoted: 

"  Joe  Stecher,  like  the  heroes  of  old,  is  now  depicted  in  ballad. 
True,  it  is  ragtime,  and  parody,  at  that,  but  ballad  nevertheless  it  is. 
Here's  one  they're  singing  around  cafes,  using  the  music  of  /  Didn't 
Raise  My  Boy  to  Be  a  Soldier: 

Ten  thousand  fans  out  to  Rourke  Park  went; 
They  will  never  go  there  again. 
Ten  thousand  mat  bugs'  hearts  are  aching 
From  the  sight  of  Cutler's  gizzard  breaking. 

They  all  saw  Joe  Stecher, 
They  all  dough  had  bet. 
So  through  their  sobs 
We  heard  them  cry: 

They  didn't  raise  Kid  Cutler  to  be  a  wrestler: 
They  brought  him  up  to  be  a  real  guy's  toy. 
Who  dares  to  place  a  foot  on  the  mattress 
And  spill  our  darling  Joe-y? 

Let  would-be  wrestlers  arbitrate  their  troubles. 

It's  time  to  can  that  tiresome  Bull. 

There'd  be  no  punk  bouts  today,  now  that  the  bunch  can  see 

That  they  can't  produce  a  guy  to  throw  our  Steche-r-r-r-rr. 

There  is  also  a  song  to  the  tune  of  Ballin-'  the  Jack,  and  another  to 
Wrap  Me  in  a  Bundle." 

The  Kinkaider's  Song  and  Joe  Stecher  afford  quite  typical  ex- 
amples of  songs  which  are,  more  or  less,  of  folk-composition.  The 
former  is  the  more  creditable,  and  was  made  by  some  one  of  better 
education,  while  the  Joe  Stecher  pieces  are  of  the  same  general  char- 
acter and  quality  as  The  Old  Chisholm  Trail  and  The  Boll  Weevil. 


THE  SOUTHWESTERN  COWBOY  SONGS     229 

that  the  rebel  songs  were  perhaps  superior  to  those  of 
the  same  class  which  were  of  Yankee  origin.  But  this 
"  rebel  war  song,"  or  "  cowboy  song,"  is  one  of  the  best 
poems  of  Innes  Randolph  (1837-188Y)  who  was  for  a 
time  connected  with  the  Baltimore  American.  Mr.  Ran- 
dolph wrote  the  song  to  satirize  the  attitude  of  some  of 
his  elders.  A  text  of  his  poem,  from  which  Mr.  Lomax's 
folk-piece  has  lost  but  a  few  lines,  is  accessible  in  The 
Humbler  Poets.40  A  volume  of  Mr.  Randolph's  verse 
was  published  after  his  death,  edited  by  his  son  Harold 
Randolph. 

Another  piece  cited  which  is  of  high  quality  is  Silver 
Jack;  and  it  tells  a  complete  story  dramatically;  but 
Silver  Jack41  sounds,  as  Mr.  Lomax  points  out,  suspi- 
ciously like  newspaper  verse.  It  is  not  the  work  of  one 
crude  and  uneducated  but  of  an  author  trained  and  skilful. 
Similarly  with  a  second  piece,  which  is  of  better  quality ; 
it  shows  skilful  use  of  dialect  spelling  and  relative  sophis- 
tication. 

But  is  it  likely  that  any  of  these  pieces  will  live,  or  win  foothold  in 
other  regions? 

*o  A  collection  of  newspaper  and  periodical  verse,  1886-1910, 
edited  by  Wallace  and  Frances  Rice.  Chicago,  1911.  See  p.  322. 

4*  A  newspaper  clipping  of  this  piece,  having  as  title  Jack  the 
Evangelist,  is  pasted  in  a  scrap-book  of  newspaper  verse  made  be- 
tween 1885  and  1900  by  N.  K.  Griggs  of  Lincoln.  Mr.  Griggs  was 
the  author  of  Lyrics  of  the  Lariat,  Hell's  Canyon,  and  later  unpub- 
lished verse,  and  it  is  possible  that  he  composed  Silver  Jack.  His 
wife  and  his  daughter,  Mrs.  H.  B.  Alexander,  recall  his  frequent  reci- 
tation of  it,  but  hesitate  to  pronounce  it  his,  since  the  newspaper 
verses  in  the  scrap-book  are  unsigned.  Silver  Jack  has  been  found 
in  Iowa,  according  to  E.  F.  Piper  of  Iowa  City,  as  well  as  in  Michi- 
gan and  Texas.  He  says  that  he  has  heard  it  attributed  to  the 
late  John  Percival  Jones,  United  States  Senator  from  Nevada. 
To  Professor  Piper  is  owed  the  identification  of  The  Ride  of  Billy 
Yenero  with  Eben  E.  Rexford's  poem. 


230  BALLADRY  IN  AMERICA 

"I've  been  in  rich  men's  houses  and  I've  been  in  jail, 
But  when  it's  time  for  leavin'  I  jes  hits  the  trail; 

I'm  a  human  bird  of  passage  and  the  song  I  trill 
Is  '  Once  you  get  the  habit  why  you  can't  keep  still.' " 

That  is  verse  of  the  school  of  the  newspaper  or  dialect  poet, 
not  of  the  composition  of  the  unlettered. 

That  a  song  is  current  in  a  certain  community,  or  liked 
by  a  certain  class,  is  not  testimony  that  it  originated 
among  those  who  sing  it,  but  pretty  nearly  the  contrary.42 
It  may  have  found  its  way  among  them  in  some  such 
manner  as  The  Railroad  Corral  and  The  Little  Old  Sod 
Shanty  found  their  way  among  the  cowboys;  or  as  Casey 
Jones  and  Life's  Railway  to  Heaven  have  been  adopted 
by  railway  people. 

To  reiterate,  in  the  body  of  Western  American  folk- 
song, the  pieces  of  proved  vitality,  most  compact  in  struc- 
ture and  affording  the  truest  analogy  to  the  Child  ballads, 
are  not  those  which  are  the  work  of  uneducated  people  of 
the  Middle  West  or  the  South,  in  spontaneous  collabora- 
tion. The  few  rough  improvisations  which  we  can  iden- 
tify as  emerging  from  the  folk  themselves, —  which  we 

*2  The  songs  of  a  new  community  usually  enter  by  way  of  immi- 
gration. See,  as  a  random  example,  Jamaican  Song  and  Story,  col- 
lected and  edited  by  Walter  Jekyl.  Appendices,  Traces  of  African 
Melody  in  Jamaica,  C.  S.  Myers,  English  Airs  and  Motifs  in  Ja- 
maica, Lucy  E.  Broad  wood,  London,  1907.  The  testimony  of  Mr. 
Myers  (p.  284)  is  that:  "The  majority  of  Jamaican  songs  are  of 
European  origin.  The  negroes  have  learned  them  from  hearing 
sailor's  chanties,  or  they  have  adapted  hymn  tunes."  And  Miss 
Broadwood  (p.  285)  writes  to  the  same  effect.  "By  far  the  greater 
part  of  the  Jamaican  tunes  and  song-words  seem  to  be  reminiscences 
or  imitations  of  European  sailor's  chanties  of  the  modern  class;  or 
of  trivial  British  nursery  jingles,  adopted  as  all  such  jingles  become 
adopted." 


BALLAD  MAKING  231 

actually  know  to  be  the  work  of  unlettered  individuals  or 
throngs,  —  are  those  farthest  from  the  Child  ballads  in 
their  general  characteristics.  The  pieces  cited  speci- 
ficially  as  "  corroborative  "  are  inferior,  will  soon  be  ex- 
tinct, and  offer  no  dependable  evidence. 


IV BALLAD    MAKING   AS    A    "  CLOSED    ACCOUNT  " 

A  final  affirmation  to  be  examined  is  that  there  "  will 
be  no  more  ballads,"  that  "  ballad-making  is  a  closed 
account."  The  following,  added  to  an  interesting  and 
well-written  discussion  of  the  mediseval  ballads,  is  a 
typical  statement.  "  True  ballads  lasted  long  after  the 
middle  ages,  but  mainly  by  repetition  or  modification  of 
those  already  made.  With  every  century  the  chances 
for  a  new  ballad  were  fewer,  until  now  the  ballad  has 
long  been  extinct  as  a  form  of  composition.  There  will 
be  no  more  ballads;  for  the  conditions  under  which 
they  are  produced  are  long  passed."  43  "  Conditions  fav- 
orable to  the  making  of  such  pieces,"  said  Professor  Gum- 
mere,  "  ceased  to  be  general  after  the  fifteenth  century." 
The  same  scholar  remarked  in  many  places  that  "  Ballads 
can  not  be  made  now,  at  least  among  civilized  races," 

«C.  S.  Baldwin,  English  Mediaeval  literature  (1914),  p.  243. 
And  so  Professor  Kittredge  in  his  introduction  to  the  Cambridge 
English  and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads  (1904):  "  Ballad  making, 
so  far  as  English-speaking  nations  are  concerned,  is  a  lost  art;  and 
the  same  may  be  said  of  ballad-singing."  In  1915  he  wrote  (C. 
Alphonso  Smith,  "  Ballads  Surviving  in  the  United  States,"  The 
Musical  Quarterly,  January,  1916)  that  if  he  were  again  summing 
up  the  facts  he  would  modify  his  statement  that  ballad-singing  is  a 
lost  art,  either  in  Great  Britain  or  in  the  United  States,  evidence 
for  its  survival  having  come  in  in  the  last  decade;  but  the  state- 
ment that  ballad-making  is  a  lost  art  he  did  not  modify. 


232  BALLADEY  IN  AMERICA 

that  "  under  modern  conditions,  ballad-making  is  a  closed 
account."  44  Statements  to  the  same  effect  by  many  others 
might  be  cited. 

Unless  style  determines  what  are  genuinely  ballads  and 
what  are  not,  the  making  of  ballads,  i.  e.,  short  verse-nar- 
ratives of  singable  form,  is  not  a  closed  account ;  and  there 
is  no  reason  why  it  ever  should  be  such.  Nor  is  the  mak- 
ing of  "  popular  "  or  "  folk  "  ballads  extinct,  meaning  by 
this  short  lyric  tales  apparently  authorless,  preserved 
among  the  people,  and  having  an  existence  which  has  b& 
come  purely  oral  and  traditional.  The  mode  in  ballad- 
making  has  changed  and  will  change.  There  will  be 
no  more  Child  ballads,  for  they  preserve  a  style  estab- 
lished in  bygone  centuries.  But  styles  change  in  folk 
poetry  as  they  do  in  book  poetry.  There  is  a  "  history  of 
taste "  for  folk  poetry  just  as  for  book  poetry.  There 
are  as  great  differences  between  the  folk  poetry  of  the 
sixteenth  and  the  twentieth  centuries  as  between  the  book 
poetry  of  the  sixteenth  and  the  twentieth  centuries.  Folk 
poetry  is  not  a  fixed  thing  to  rise  and  die  but  a  shifting 
thing.  The  test  of  what  may  be  termed  folk-songs  or  folk 
ballads  should  not  be  the  retention  of  a  mediaeval  style,  and 
certainly  it  should  not  be  some  hypothetical  communal-mys- 
tic manner  of  origin.  They  are  folk-songs  if  the  people 
have  remembered  them  and  sung  them,  if  they  have  an  ex- 
istence apart  from  written  sources,  and  if  they  have  been 
given  oral  preservation  through  a  fair  period  of  years. 
As  pointed  out  earlier,  in  treating  balladry  in  America,  at- 
tempts at  differentiating  traditional  song  into  "  popular 

44  The  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature,  vol.  rt,  xvii,  p. 
448;  Old  English  Popular  Ballads,  p.  xxvii;  The  Popular  Ballad, 
pp.  16,  337,  etc. 


BALLAD  MAKING  233 

songs,"  or  songs  made  for  the  people,  and  "  folk-songs  " 
or  songs  made  by  the  people,  based  on  some  hypothesis 
of  distinctive  origin  or  distinctive  style,  are  undependable 
and  unwarranted.  Such  differentiation  is  borne  out  by 
the  study  of  no  body  of  homogeneous  folk-song,  whether 
regional  or  national. 

When  we  contrast  the  older  and  newer  in  folk  song  it 
becomes  obvious  that  the  superiority  for  persistence  in 
the  popular  mouth  belongs  with  the  former;  nor  is  this 
to  be  wondered  at.     The  older  singer  composed  for  the 
ear ;  otherwise  his  work  was  vain.     The  newer  writes  for 
the  eye,  both  words  and  music;  instead  of  professional 
musicians  as  agents  of  diffusion  we  now  have  printing. 
Skill  in  creating  memorable  songs  is  more  likely    to  char- 
acterize composition  of  the  first  type  than  of  the  second. 
Much  in  modern  song  is  unsingable  and  unremember- 
able;  no  one  can  expect  it  to  make  a  deep  impression  on 
the  popular  mind.     In  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries 
poets,  whatever  their  class,  were  likely  to  be  singers  too. 
If  we  approach  popular  song  from  the  side  of  musical 
history,  it  is  clear  enough  that  contributions  to  folk-song 
should  be  especially  rich  at  a  time  when  the  connection 
between  composition  and  delivery  was  very  close.     In  the 
sixteenth  century  song  was  as  nearly  universalized  as  it 
is  likely  to  be  for  a  long  time  to  come.     Some  musical  pro- 
ficiency was  demanded  of  nearly  everybody  whether  be- 
longing to  the  upper  classes  or  to  the  lower.     The  ren- 
aissance lyric,  words  and  music,  seems  to  have  had  its 
origin  in  the  higher  culture  of  the  times  but  it  attained 
unparalleled      popularity.     Acknowledgment      that      the 
period  of  the  English  renaissance  had  the  most  memorable 
style   in   folk-song   is   not  the   same  thing,   however,   as 


234  BALLADRY  IN  AMERICA 

acknowledging  that  only  such  folk-songs  as  exhibit  this 
style  are  "  genuine."  Conformity  to  a  mediaeval  style 
may  not  logically  be  insisted  upon  as  a  test  of  what  is 
truly  a  folk  ballad  and  what  is  not. 

Already  there  are  in  America  many  short  narrative 
pieces  current  over  the  country-side,  the  authorship  and 
the  mode  of  origin  of  which  are  lost;  and  it  is  these, 
not  the  transient  improvisations  of  cowboys  or  negroes, 
which  form  the  better  analogues  for  the  English  and  Scot- 
tish ballads.  From  them  a  selection  of  texts  and  variant 
versions,  with  notations  of  parallels  and  Old  World  re- 
lationships, could  be  built  up  that  would  be  of  formidable 
and  instructive  proportions.  Reference  is  made  to  pieces 
like  Jesse  James,  The  Death  of  Ga/rfield,  Texas  Rangers, 
James  Bird,  Poor  Lorella,  Young  Charlotte,  Springfield 
Mountain,  Johnny  Sands,  Casey  Jones,  and  other  floating 
stories  in  verse  which  were  discussed  at  some  length  in  a 
preceding  section.  There  will  always  be,  very  likely,  a 
body  of  short  narrative  poems,  their  authorship  and  origin 
lost,  preserved  in  outlying  regions.  They  will  shift  in 
style  but  they  will  ever  be  behind  contemporary  song 
modes  by  a  generation  or  more.  The  style  of  present  day 
traditional  song  over  the  United  States  is,  on  the  average, 
many  decades  behind  that  prevailing  in  contemporary  com- 
positions. In  eighteenth-century  England  and  Scotland, 
the  discrepancy  was  naturally  much  greater.  A  large 
body  of  song  in  the  mediaeval  style  still  lingered,  along- 
side pieces  on  later  themes  of  middle  class  life,  in  a  later 
manner,  and  pieces  of  contemporary  creation.  The  older 
style  is  the  more  memorable ;  it  was  of  higher  quality  and 
it  persisted  longer  than  will  its  successors.  But  it  should 
not  be  a  test  of  the  genuineness  of  a  piece  as  folk-song 


BALLAD  MAKING  235 

that  it  continues  the  style  of  sixteenth  or  seventeenth  cen- 
tury popular  song  —  any  more  than  some  conjectural 
manner  of  origin  should  be  such  a  test. 

Why,  as  a  general  proposition,  should  something  vague 
or  romantic  be  so  liked,  when  the  origin  of  folk-poetry  is 
in  question  ?  Is  it  a  heritage  from  the  romanticism  of  the 
period  when  interest  in  ballads  arose  and  their  origin 
was  first  made  the  subject  of  discussion?  Here  are  some 
typical  sentences  from  Andrew  Lang: 

"No  one  any  longer  attributes  them  to  this  or  that  author, 
to  this  or  that  date  ...  its  birth  [the  ballad's]  from  the  lips 
and  heart  of  the  people  may  contrast  with  the  origin  of  art 
poetry.  .  .  .  Ballads  sprang  from  the  very  heart  of  the  people, 
and  flit  from  age  to  age,  from  lip  to  lip  of  shepherds,  peasants, 
nurses,  of  all  that  continue  nearest  to  the  natural  state  of  man. 
.  .  .  The  whole  soul  of  the  peasant  class  breathes  in  their  bur- 
dens, as  the  great  sea  resounds  in  the  shells  cast  up  from  its 
shores.  Ballads  are  a  voice  from  secret  places,  from  silent 
places,  and  old  times  long  dead." 

Yet  more  typical  is  this  from  Theodor  Storm's  Im- 
mensee  (1851),  formerly  read  so  often  in  our  schools 
that  the  view  it  presents  was  brought  before  thousands 
of  student  readers  each  year: 

"  [These  songs]  were  not  made;  they  grow;  they  fall  out  of 
the  air.  They  fly  over  the  land  like  gossamer,  hither  and  thither, 
and  are  sung  in  a  thousand  places  at  once.  Our  inmost  doings 
and  sufferings  we  find  in  these  songs;  it  is  as  though  we  had 
helped  in  composing  them." 

And  compare  Mr.  Lomax's — 

"  They  seem  to  have  sprung  up  as  quietly  and  mysteriously  as 
does  the  grass  on  the  plains." 


236  BALLADEY  IN  AMERICA 

This  is  not  very  solid  ground  and  it  is  hardly  likely  that 
the  next  generation  of  scholars  and  students  will  linger 
upon  it.  Belief  in  the  origin  of  the  mediaeval  ballads  by 
communal  improvisation  in  the  dance,  and  belief  in  the 
extinction,  with  mediaeval  conditions,  of  the  ballad  as  a 
literary  type,  seem  to  the  present  writer  to  have  emerged 
from  and  to  belong  to  a  period  of  criticism  which  deliber- 
ately preferred  the  vague  and  the  mystical  for  all  problems 
of  literary  and  linguistic  history  —  mythological  explana- 
tion of  the  Beowulf  story,  multi-handed  composition  of  the 
Homeric  poems,  mystical  theories  of  the  origin  of  lan- 
guage. These  originate  in  romance  but  they  readily  fade 
in  a  literal,  anti-romantic  period  like  our  own. 

To  what  degree,  one  is  tempted  to  ask,  is  the  scholarly 
and  critical  enthusiasm  for  ballads  of  the  last  hundred 
years,  or  more,  due  to  this  romantic  attitude?  But  for 
their  fascinating  mystery,  would  the  learned  world  have 
preoccupied  itself,  in  the  same  measure,  with  ballads? 
Perhaps  when  the  cloud  of  romanticism  overhanging  it 
has  vanished  utterly,  we  may  again  come  to  look  on  bal- 
ladry as  did  the  cultivated  world  in  the  days  of 
humanism. 


INDEX 


Abraham  and  Isaac,  the  Brome, 

172. 
Adam  Bell,   Clin  o'   the  Clough, 

and  William  of  Cloudeslee,  38. 
Adam  lay  y-boundyn,  175. 
Adolfi,  Johann,  71. 
After  the  Ball,  92,  213. 
Akkas,  The,  10. 
Aldhelm,  94,  184. 
Alexander,  Mrs.  H.  B.,  229. 
Allen,  G.  N.,  207. 
Alliterative  epithets,  109. 
Als  I  yod  on  ay  Mounday,  165. 
Ames,  Mrs.  L.  D.,  61,  219. 
American  ballads,  192,  ff. 
Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  45. 
Andamanese,  the,   10,  25. 
Andamese,   the,   22. 
Andersen,  J.  C.,  22. 
Anderson,  Robert,  90. 
Andrew  Lammie,  109. 
Angelina  Baker,  219. 
Annals  of  Waverley,  the,  168. 
Annandale,  N.,  74. 
Ascham,  Roger,  44,  98. 
Assassination  of  J.  B.  Marcum, 

The,  106. 
Aube,  the,  167. 
Australians,  the,  10,  25,  34". 

Babes  in  the  Woods,  201. 
Babylon,  121,  122,  134,  144,  168. 
Bakairi,  the,  26. 


Baldwin,  C.  S.,  37,  65,  87,  216, 

231. 

Ballad  affiliations,  171. 
Ballade,  the,  38,  42,  43,  45,  46, 

48,  77,  85,  111,  142,  169. 
Ballad  and  the  dance,  the,  36. 
Ballad  dance,  the,  27. 
Ballads  and  clericals,  183. 
Ballads  and  the  illiterate,  87. 
Ballads    as    the    earliest    poetic 

form,  27-35. 

Ballad  of  Reading  Gaol,  158. 
Ballad  of  Twelfth  Day,  A,   164, 

171,  180. 

Ballad  style,  the,  120. 
Ballin'  the  Jack,  228. 
Banks  of  Cloudy,  201. 
Bannockburn  song,  50,  78. 
Barbara  Allen,  53,  68,  80,  92,  93, 

110,  137,  195,  197. 
Barbour,  John,  38". 
Barrack  Room  Ballads,  101. 
Barry,    Phillips,    124,    137,    193, 

207,  210. 

Battle  of  Harlaw,  The,  81. 
Battle  of  LovelVs  Pond,  The,  203. 
Battle  of  Maldon,  The,  170. 
Battle  of   Otterbourne,   The,   76, 

81,  102,  108,  110,  167,  173. 
Baum,  P.  F.,  164. 
Bedier,  J.,  48,  68. 
Beck,  Jean,    166. 
Bedroom  Window,  The,  200. 


237 


238 


INDEX 


Beers,  Henry,  37,  95,  148. 

Beginnings  of  poetry,  the,  1-35. 

Belden,  H.  M.,  123,  193,  198. 

Betsy  Brown,  199. 

Betsy  from  Pike,  206,  207. 

Bicester,  185. 

Billy  Boy,  133,  201. 

Bingen  on  the  Rhine,  137,  227. 

Bird,  James,  203,  234. 

Bitter  Withy,  The,  110,  126,  171. 

Blind  Boone,  214. 

Bludy  Sark,  The,  149. 

Blue  and  the  Gray,  The,  204. 

Boas,  Franz,  20,  22. 

Boatman's  Dance,  De,  225. 

Bohme,  Franz,  5,  68,  75,  76,  157, 

169. 
Boll  Weevil,  The,  106,  215,  224, 

226,  228. 

Bonny  Birdy,  The,  80. 
Bonny  Black  Bess,  226. 
Bonny  Dundee,  226. 
Boros,  the,  10,  22,  30,  145. 
Born  is  the  Bate,  126. 
Boston  Burglar,  The,  198,  227. 
Botocudos,  The,  9,  10,  25,  26,  34. 
Boynton,  J.  H.,  174. 
Bradley,  Henry,  108. 
Bradley,  W.  A.,   106. 
Breaking  in  a  Tenderfoot,  223. 
Brevity  of  Indian  Songs,  The,  31. 
Bring  Us  Good  Ale,  126. 
Brisk  Young  Lover,  A,  198. 
Broadwood,  Lucy  E.,  230. 
Brockhaus,  F.  A.,  40. 
Brome  Abraham  and  Isaaj,  The, 

172. 

Browne,  George,  20. 
Brown,  Carleton  F.,  175. 
Brown  of  Falkland,  Mrs.,  90,  109. 
Brown  Robin's  Confession,  168. 


Brown,  Theron,  129,  159. 
Bruce,  Michael,  42. 
Brunanburh   song,    170. 
Bryant,  F.  E.,  123,  148,  155. 
Biicher,  Karl,   5,  22,   157. 
Buena  Vista  Battlefield,  138,  227. 
Buffalo  Gals,  54. 
Burlin,  Natalie  Curtis,  131. 
Burning   of   the  Newhall  House, 

The,  212. 
Burrows,  G.,  10. 
Burton,  Frederick  K.,  2,  16,  32. 
Burton,  Robert,  44. 
Bury  Me  not  on  the  Lone  Prairie, 

138,  206. 

Bushmen,  The,  15,  16. 
Butcher's  Boy,  The,  198: 
Butterworth,  Hezekiah,  129,  159. 
By  Markentura's  Flowery  Marge, 

221. 


Cabnam,  Thomas  de,  185.        '•  . . 
Callaway,  H.,  34. 
Cambric  Shirt,  The,  196. 
Campbell,  Olive  Dame,  137,  152, 

193. 

Camptown  Races,  The,  225. 
Canterbury  Tales,  81. 
Captain  Jinks,  54,  63. 
Captain  Kidd,  105. 
Carol,  The,  45,  47,  50,  77,   145, 

169,  172,  174. 
Carol  of  the  Six  Rose  Branches, 

127. 
Carnal  and  the  Crane,  The,  110, 

165,   167,   168,  172. 
Carter,  William,  124,  210. 
Casey  Jones,  105,  212,  230,  234. 
Castel  of  Love,  186. 
Chamberlain,  A.  F.,  22. 


INDEX 


239 


Chambers,  E.  K.,   102,   103,   143, 

185. 

Chansons  d'aventure,  110,  165. 
Charleston,  198. 
Charms,  The,  170. 
Chase  that  Squirrel,  63. 
Chaucer,    43,    48,    97,    110,    160, 

168,  181. 

Cherry  Tree  Carol,  126,  167,  172. 
Chevy  Chase,  38,  40,  99,  148,  203. 
Cheyenne  Boys,  206. 
Child,  F.  J.,  42,  53,  88,  89,  95, 

103,  111,  146,  163,  192. 
Children's  game  songs,  57  S. 
Child   Slain    by    the   Jews,    The, 

172. 

Child  Waters,  96. 
Chippewa   song,    13,    16,    19,   21, 

29,  33. 

Christ  Comes,  175. 
Clare  de  Kitchen,  225. 
Cleasby-Vigfusson,  69. 
Codrington,  R.  H.,  22. 
Cohen,  Helen  Louise,  43,  48,  142. 
Colbrand  (Guy  of  Warwick),  185. 
Cold-Water  Pledge,  The,  133. 
Coleridge,  S.  T.,  45. 
Columbus,  Ferdinand,  23. 
Combs,  Jack,   106. 
"  Communal "      authorship      and 

ownership,  413. 
Complaynt  of  Scotland,  The,  54, 

81,  94,  190. 

Continental  Vocalists,  The,   214. 
Coombs,  J.  H.,  193. 
Cotgrave,  R.,  44,  82. 
Courtship   of   the  Frog   and   the 

Mouse,  201. 
Cowan,  James,   30. 
Cowboy's  Lament,  The,  137,  207, 

227. 


Cowboy  songs,  214  ff. 
Cow  Chace,  The,  203. 
Cox,  E.  G.,  70. 
Cruel  Brother,  The,  80. 
Culin,  Stewart,  29. 
Cunningham,  Allan,  227. 
Cupid's  Garden,  201. 
Curtis,  Natalie,  2. 
Cynewulf,  141. 


Dahlman,  F.  C.,  71. 

Dance  songs  proper,  47-67,  81. 

D'Angrera,  Peter  Martyr,  24. 

Danish  ballads,  170. 

Danish  dance  songs,  69-72. 

Dante,  41. 

Darby,  Loraine,  64,  94. 

Days    of    Forty-Nine,    The,    206, 

227. 
Death   of   a   Romish   Lady,    The, 

92,  199. 

Death  of  Garfield,  The,  212,  234. 
Debes,  Lucas,  74. 
Delia  Cruscans,  The,  122. 
Deloney,  Thomas,  38,  42,  99,  108. 
Densmore,  Frances,  2,  13,  18,  30, 

33. 
Dialogue    and     situation    songs, 

139-146. 

Dick  of  the  Cow,  82. 
Ditmarsh  folk  of  Holstein,  68,  71, 

75. 

Dives  and  Lazarus,  168. 
Dixon,  G.  W.,  225. 
Douglas,  Gawain,  48. 
"  Dream  "  songs,  13. 
Dreary  Black  Hills,  The,  206. 
Drowsy  Sleeper,  The,  200. 
Dyboski,  Roman,  177,  178. 
Dying  Californian,  The,  138. 


240 


INDEX 


Dying  Cowboy,  The,  106,  137,  207, 

223,  226. 
Dunbar,  William,  44. 

Earl  Brand,  137,  160,  167. 

Earl  of  Mar's  Daughter,  The,  79. 

Ealdhelm,  94,   184. 

Edom  o'  Gordon,  160. 

Edward,  48,   111,   115,   118,   122, 

134,    139,    140,    148,    160,    163, 

168. 

Ehrenreich,  Dr.  Paul,  9,  25,  26. 
Elfin  Knight,  The,   196. 
Emmett,  "  Old  Dan,"  219. 
English  ballads  and  the  church, 

162-191. 

Eskimo,  the,  10,  20,  25,  34. 
Estrifs,  110. 
Ethiopian  Serenaders,   The,  219, 

225. 

Evergreen,  Allan  Ramsay's,   103. 
Extinction  of  ballad  making,  231 

ff. 

Fabyan,  Robert,  49. 

Fair  Fannie  Moore,  226. 

Fair  Flower  of  Northumberland, 
The,  42,  99,  108. 

Fair  Janet,  80. 

Fair  Margaret  and  Sweet  Wil- 
liam, 137. 

Falmouth  is  a  Fine  Town,  227. 

Farmer's  Boy,  The,  201. 

Farmer's  Curst  Wife,  The,  197. 

Faroe  Island  ballads,  73,  166. 

Father  Grumble,  200. 

Fehr,  Bernhard,  175. 

Fenner,  T.  P.,  129. 

Fillmore,  J.  C.,  24. 

Firth,  C.  H.,  99,  199. 

Fisk  Jubilee  singers,  219. 


Five  Joys  of  Christmas,  The,  126. 
Fletcher,  Alice  C.,   1,  2,   10,  16, 

17,  21,  31. 

Fletcher,  John,  92,  200. 
Flodden  Field,  42,  99,   167. 
Flugel,  E.,  164,  176. 
Ford,  Robert,  211. 
Forty-Five  Bottles  a-Hanging  on 

the  Wall,  132. 
Foster,  Stephen  C.,  204,  208,  219, 

225. 

Four  Elements,  The,  166. 
Freighting  from  Wilcox  to  Glebe, 

227. 

French  dance  songs,  68. 
Froissart's  Chronicles,  97,  160. 
Fry,  C.  W.,  209. 
Fuller  and  Warren,  212. 
Furnivall,   F.    J.,    82,    172,    175, 

186. 

Gallant  Church,  The,  203. 
Gardener,  The,  108. 
Gascoigne,  George,  44. 
Gawayn  and   the   Green   Knight, 

47. 

Gay  Goshawk,  The,  136. 
Gennep,  A.  van,  8. 
Geordie,  196. 
Geste  of  Robin  Hood,  98,  110,  111, 

116,  139,  165. 
Ghost-dance  songs,  14. 
Gillen,  F.  J.,  34. 
Gilman,  B.  I.,  3. 
Godless  French  Soldier,  The,  203. 
Golden  Vanity,  The,  197. 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  92. 
Gomes,  E.  H.,  30. 
Gomme,  Alice,  47,  60,  64,  65,  144. 
Gray  Cock,  The,  110,  167. 
Green  Gravel,  59. 


INDEX 


241 


Green  Grass,  59. 

Green  Grass  Grows  All  Round, 
132. 

Greg,  W.  W.,  164. 

Griggs,  N.  K.,  229. 

Grosse,  Ernst,  8. 

Gummere,  F.  B.,  3,  6,  9,  27,  28,  30, 
36,  46,  50,  62,  68,  73,  82,  83, 
87,  88,  96,  98,  99,  107,  113,  116, 
117,  121,  154,  157,  215,  218, 
231. 

Grundtvig,  S.,  50,  72,  90. 

Gwine  to  Run  All  Night,  225. 

Hagen's  Dance,  71. 

Hail,  Hail,  the  Gang's  All  Here, 

158. 

Hako,  The,  18,  19,  154. 
Hale,  Nathan,  203. 
Hales,  Thomas  de,   176. 
Hamilton,  Goldy  M.,  64,  219. 
Hamlet,  99. 
Hampton   Institute  singers,  213, 

224. 

Hangman's  Tree,  The,  112,  136. 
Hanson,  J.  M.,  226. 
Hardy,  John,  93. 
Harris,  C.  K.,  213. 
Harrowing  of  Hell,  The,  172,  173. 
Hart,  W.  M.,  28,  65,  83,  88,  104, 

111,  139,  142,  146,  217. 
Haur4au,  B.,  185. 
Hays,  Will  S.,  204. 
Haytians,  The,  23. 
Healing  song,  20. 
He    bare   him   up,   he   bare   him 

down,  176. 

Henderson,  T.  F.,  38,  149. 
Henley,  W.  E.,  227. 
Henryson,  Robert,  149. 
Herbert,  a  minstrel,  185. 


Here  Comes  Three  Dukes  A-Rov- 
ing,  93. 

Here's  a  Soldier,  60. 

Hodson,  T.,  34. 

Holy  Rollers,  the,  75. 

Holy  Well,  The,  110,  126,  172. 

Horse  Wrangler,  The,  206,  223. 

Horstmann,  Carl,  172. 

Hot  Time  in  the  Old  Town  To- 
night, 158,  204,  220. 

Howards,  the,  167. 

House,  H.  C.,  196. 

Howitt,  A.  W.,  14,  20,  30. 

Hoyt,  C.  K.,  213. 

Hudson,  W.  H.,  28. 

Hugh  of  Lincoln,  168. 

Hulme,  W.  H.,  172. 

Humboldt,  A.  von,  35. 

Hunting  of  the  Cheviot,  The,  76, 
81,  107,  108,  147,  154,  167,  173. 

Hunt  Is  Up,  The,  51,  54,  82. 

Hustvedt,  S.  B.,  42. 

Hutchinson  Family,  the,  214. 

Hypurinas,  the,  26. 


Icelandic  dance  songs,  69. 

/  Didn't  Raise  My  Boy  to  Be  a 
Soldier,  106,  228. 

/  Have  Found  a  Friend  in  Jesus, 
209. 

/  Have  Twelve  Oxen,  125. 

I'll  not  Marry  at  all,  225. 

I'm  a  Good  Old  Rebel,  228. 

Improvisation  and  folk-song,  153— 
161. 

"  Incremental  repetition,"  121- 
139. 

Individual  authorship  and  own- 
ership of  primitive  song,  13- 
27. 


242 


INDEX 


Inter  diabolus  et  virgo,  123,  164, 

184. 
Irwin,  May,  213. 


Ivanhoe,  97. 

Jack  Combs,  106. 

Jack  Donahoo,  226. 

Jack  the  Evangelist,  229. 

Jack  Williams,  199. 

James  Bird,  203,  234. 

Jamea,  Sir  H.,  10. 

Jamie  Douglas,   147. 

Jeanroy,  Alfred,  48,  68,  105. 

Jealous  Lover,   The,  210. 

Jekyl,  Walter,  230. 

Jesse  James,  105,   106,  211,  213, 

227,  234. 

Jew  Boy  in  an  Oven,  A.,  172. 
Jew's  Daughter,  The,  168. 
Jim  along  Jo,  54,  63. 
Jock  o'  the  Side,  82. 
Joe  Bowers,  205. 
Joe  Stecher,  106. 
John  Brown,   54,    105,    106,   152, 

166. 

John,  Come  Kiss  Me  "Now,  52. 
Johnstown^  Flood,  the,  212. 
Johnny  Armstrong,  82. 
Johnny  Campbell,  110,  167. 
John  Hardy,  93,  137,  152. 
Johnny  Sands,  214,  234. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  42. 
Jolly  Old  Miller,  The,  61,  62. 
Jonea,  John  Percival,  229. 
Jonson,  Ben,  44. 
Juanita,  220. 
Jubilee  Singers,  the,  213. 
Judas,  76,  123,  136,  142,  164,  166, 

171,  173,  178,  179,  184,  189. 
Judas  Iscariot,  164. 


Juniper  Tree,  The,  62. 
Junod,  H.  A.,  30. 

Kaffirs,  the,  26. 

Karok,  the,  1. 

Keep   the   Home  Fires   Burning, 

152,  205. 

Ker,  W.  P.,  37,  38,  100,  143,  180. 
Kidd,  Captain,  105. 
Kilmacrankie,  62. 
King  Cnut's  Song,  50. 
King  Denia  of  Portugal,  141. 
King   Estmere,   48,   78,   94,    109, 

118,  160. 
King  Horn,  100. 
King    John    and    the    Bishop    of 

Canterbury,  118. 
Kinkaid,  M.  P.,  228. 
Kinkaiders'   Song,    228. 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  101. 
Ritchie  Boy,  the,  100. 
Kittredge,  G  L.,  36,  96,  104,  107, 

112,    116,    155,    157,    192,   215, 

218,  231. 
Knight  of  the  Burning  Pestle,  92, 

200. 
Koch-Griinberg,  Theodor,  24,  25, 

33. 

Krapp,  G.  P.,  28. 
Krehbiel,  H.  E.,  129. 
Kurburu's  song,  20. 
Kwai,  the,  15,  25,  34. 

Lackey  Bill,  226. 

Lady  Caroline  of  Edinboro  Town, 

201. 

Lady  Isabel,  94. 
Lady  Maisry,  94,  96,  160. 
La  Fleache,  Francis,   17,  21. 
Lambarde,  William,  49. 
Lamentacio  Dolorosa,  175. 


INDEX 


243 


Lamkin,  100,  195. 

Landtmann,  G.,  30. 

Lang,  Andrew,  67,    107,  235. 

Lang,  H.  R.,  141. 

Lass  of  Roch  Royal,  The,  93,  137, 

152. 

Last  Longhorn,  The,  138,  227. 
Lawrence,  W.  W.,  216,  217,  221. 
Leesome  Brand,  79. 
Le  Jeune's  Relations,  15. 
Life's  Railway  to  Heaven,  230 
Lily  of  the  Valley,  The,  209. 
Literary    words    in    the    ballads, 

109. 

Little  Brown  Jug,  54,  64. 
Little  Harry  Hughes,  196. 
Little  Old  Log  Cabin  in  the  Lane, 

208. 
Little  Old  Sod  Shanty,  The,  106, 

207,  208,  223,  226,  230. 
Lomax,  J.  A.,  134,  150,  210,  214 

ff.,  228,  235. 
London  Bridge,  38. 
Lone  prairie,  The,  223,  226. 
Longfellow,  H.  W.,  41,  203. 
Long  Long  Trail,  The,  152,  205. 
Lord  Bateman,  196. 
Lord  Lovel,  94,  137,  195. 
Lord   Randal,   48,    93,    122,    134, 

140,    154,    160,    163,    168,    195, 

196. 
Lord    Thomas    and    Fair   Annet, 

94,  160. 

Lorena,  92,  152,  220. 
Lorla,  210. 

Love  in  Disguise,  226. 
Love  Rune  of  Thomas  de  Hales, 

176. 

Lover's  Return,  the,  201. 
Lovewell's  Fight,  203. 
Lowlands  Low,  the,  197. 


Lucy  Long,  225. 

Lucy  Neal,  225. 

Lullaby  to  the  Infant  Jesus,  175. 

Lyke  Wake  Dirge,   133. 

Lyngbye,  H.  C.,  73,  106. 

Macaffie's  Confession,  227. 
Mackenzie,  A.  S.,  5,  30. 
Madden,  Sir  F.,  49. 
Magalhaes,  Jose  V.  Couto  de,  27. 
Maid  and  the  Palmer,  80,  168". 
Maid   Freed   from    the    Gallows, 

The,  53,  78,  93,  122,  134,  144. 
Maori,  the,  10. 
Marching  Round  the  Levy,  61. 
Marching  Through  Georgia,   152. 
Marie  Hamilton,  94. 
Martinengo-Cesaresco,     Countess, 

122. 

Mary  moder  cum  and  se,  172. 
Mary  of  the  Wild  Moor,  201. 
Matthew  of  Paris,  49,  168. 
Matthews,   Brander,  219. 
Matthews,  Washington,  24,  33. 
Maypole  dance,  64,  94. 
McGill,  Josephine,   193. 
Mediaeval  literary  conventions  in 

the  ballads,  110,  167. 
Melanesians,  the,  15,  22. 
Mermaid,   The,   197. 
"  Metis "    Song    of    the    Buffalo 

Hunters,  221. 
Miles,  E.  B.,  128. 
Miles,  Joseph  T.,  158. 
Milkmaid,  The,  134. 
Miller  Boy,  The,  62. 
Miller,  Emery,  208. 
Miller,  G.  M.,  155. 
Milman,  H.  H.,  130. 
Miracles  of  Our  Lady,  The,  172. 
Mississippi  Girls,  206. 


244 


INDEX 


Moody  and  Sankey,  the  evange- 
lists, 134. 

Mooney,  James,  3,  14,  22. 

Moore,  Frank,  203. 

Moore,  John  Robert,  123. 

Motherwell,  William,   122. 

Moulton,  R.  G.,  4,  5,  27,  28. 

Mulberry  Bush,  58. 

Murray,  J.  A.  H.,  81,  82,  94,  190. 

Myers,  C.  S.,  230. 

My  Little  Old  Sod  Shanty,  106, 
207,  208. 

My  Maryland,  228. 

My  Old  Kentucky  Home,  208, 
213,  224. 

Name  "ballad,"  the,  39. 

Nancy  of  Yarmouth,  204. 

Nashe,  Thomas,  52. 

Nathan  Hale,  203. 

Navaho  song,  24. 

Negro  revival  hymns,  129-132. 

Neocorus,  71,  75. 

Newell,  W.  W.,  53,  57,  65,  93, 
155,  192,  210. 

"New  English  Dictionary,  40,  43, 
166. 

Newton,  Henry,  33. 

New  Webster  International  Dic- 
tionary, 40. 

Nichols,  John,   90. 

Night-Herding  Song,  221. 

Noah's  Flood,   the   Chester,   182. 

noels,  169,  171. 

Norton,  Caroline  E.,  137. 

Nut-Brown  Maid,  the,  150. 

Oats  and  Beans  and  Barley,  60. 

Obongo,  the,  25. 

Ojibway  song,  32. 

Old.  Klnck  Joe,  106,  213,  224. 


Old  Ohisholm  Trail,  The,  106, 
215,  222,  223,  224,  226,  228. 

Old  Dan  Tucker,  54,  152,  219. 

Old  Grumble,  200. 

Old  Man  Under  the  Hill,  226. 

Old  Shawnee,  The,  211. 

Omaha,  the,  16,  17,  21. 

One  little,  two  little,  three  little, 
Injuns,  133. 

One,  two,  buckle  my  shoe,  133. 

Out  of  the  Blossom,  126. 

Over  There,  152,  205. 

Pack  Up  Your  Troubles,  205. 
Padelford,  F.  M.,  140. 
Pane,  Ramon,  23. 
Paper  of  Pins,  A,  134. 
Pastance    with    gude    companye, 

81. 

Paumari,  the,  26. 
Pawnee,  the,  18. 
Pepys,   Samuel,  42,  92,  93. 
Percy,  Bishop,  45,  89,  90,  103. 
Percy  and  the  Douglas,  the,  42, 

105,  160. 
Percys,  the,  167. 
Perrow,  E.  C.,  110,  136,  224,  226. 
Peter  Martyr   d'Anghrera,   24. 
Piers  Plowman,  97,  165. 
Piper,  E.  F.,  61,   193,  219,  229. 
Pirates'  Chorus,  158. 
Play  party  songs,  60  ff. 
Poor  Lonesome  Cowboy,  A,   138. 
Poor  Lorella,  210,  234. 
Poor  Mary  Sits  A-Weeping,   60. 
Porter,  M.  V.,  22. 
Powers,  Stephen,  1. 
Prentice  Boy,  The,  201. 
pricksong,  166. 
Prior  ease's  Tale,  The,  168. 
Proud  Elselille,  70. 


INDEX 


245 


Proud  Lady  Margaret,  160. 
Psychic  suggestion  in  poetry,  84. 

Quaker's  Courtship,  The,  133. 
Queen  Anne,  59. 
Queen  Emma,  185. 

Railroad  Corral,  The,  226,  230. 

Ralston,  W.  R.  S.,  68. 

Rambling  Cowboy,  The,  226. 

Ramsay,  Allan,  103. 

Randolph,  Earl  of  Chester,  97. 

Randolph,  Innes,  229. 

Rattlesnake  Song,  210,  226. 

Refrains,  76. 

Rejected  Lover,  The,  137. 

Rexford,  Eben  E.,  227,  229. 

Rhys,  Ernest,  173. 

Rice,  Wallace  and  Frances,  229. 

Rice,  T.,  225. 

Richard       Hill's       Commonplace 

Book,  175,  177. 
Richie  Story,  100. 
Rich  Merchant  of  London,  201. 
Rickert,  Edith,  126. 
Ridderen  i  Hjdrteham,   170. 
Riddles   Wisely  Expounded,    108, 

123. 

Ride  of  Billy  Venero,  226,  229. 
Ride  of  Paul  Venarez,  227. 
Ring  of  Roses,  A,  59. 
Ritson,  Joseph,  42,  45,  49,   103, 

184. 

Robert  Grosseteste,  186. 
Robert  Manning  of  Brunne,  186. 
Robin  and   Gandeleyn,   109,   110, 

123,   165,  166,  174,   188. 
Robin  Hood,  82,  97,  102,  105,  107, 

110,    140,    144,    154,    166,    167, 

188,  216. 


Robin  Hood  and  Little  John,  81, 

190. 

Robin  Hood  and  the  Monk,  165. 
Robin  Hood  and  the  Potter,  165. 
Robin  Hood  and  the  Ranger,  108. 
Robin   Hood   and   the  Shepherd, 

102. 

Robin  Hood  Newly  Revived,  98. 
Rob  Roy,  79. 

Rabyne  and  Makyne,  149. 
Romance  of  the  Rose,  47. 
Rondeau,  42. 

Roosevelt,   Theodore,  216. 
Root,  George  F.,  212. 
Rose  of  England,   The,   99,   110, 

167. 
Rose  is  Railed  on  a  Ryse,  This, 

126. 

Rosin  the  Bow,  226. 
Rossetti,  D.  G.,  41,  140. 
Round   and   Round    the    Village, 

58. 

Rowe,  Nicholas,    103. 
Roxburgh  ballads,  200. 
Royster,  J.  F.,  49. 

Saalbach,  Arthur,   56. 
Salvation  Army,  75. 
Sankey,  Ira  D.,  209. 
Sapir,   Edward,  29. 
Satire  against  women,   124. 
Saunders,  W.  H.,  207. 
Saving  of  Crotey  City,  172. 
Schelling,  F.,   166. 
Schlichter,   10. 
Schmidt,  Erich,  8,  35. 
Schmidt,  Dr.  Max,  26. 
Schnadahupfln,  76,  157. 
Schweinfurth,  G.  A.,   10. 
Scott,  F.  N.,  22. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  101,  103. 


24,6 


INDEX 


Seligman,  C.  G.,  20. 

Semang,  the,  10,  25. 

Seri,  the,  10. 

Seven  Sleepers  of  Ephesus,  185. 

Shakers,  the,  75. 

Sharp,  C.   J.,  93,   119,   137,   152, 

193. 

Shearin,  H.  G.,  193. 
Sheffield  Apprentice,  A,  198. 
Shenstone,  William,  42. 
Ship's  Carpenter,  The,  197. 
Shortened  Bread,  213. 
Sidgwick,  F.,  87,  107,  176. 
Sievers,  R.,  99. 
Silver  Dagger,  211. 
Silver  Jack,  229. 
Sioux,  the,  21. 
Sir  Aldingar,  110,  167. 
Sir  Andrew  Barton,  99,  167. 
Sir  Orpheo,  173. 
Sir   Patrick  Spens,   41,   45,    102, 

118,  154,  160. 
Sister  Helen,  41,  140. 
Skip  to  My  Lou,  61. 
Smith,    C.    Alphonso,    155,    193, 

195,  231. 

Smith,  Reed,  193,  195. 
Smith's  Affair  at  Sidelong  Hill, 

203. 

Soldier,  soldier,  133. 
Soldier,  The,  201. 
Soldier,     The     Godless     French, 

203. 

Song  of  Dekum,  21. 
Song  of  the  Bird's  Nest,  18. 
Song  of  the  Boxer,  204. 
Song  of  the  Incarnation,  174,  175. 
Song  of  Joseph  and  Mary,  174. 
Song   of   the   "  Metis "   Trapper, 

134. 
Song  of  a  Tree,  132. 


Song  of  the  Trees,  19. 

Song  of  the  Wren,  18. 

Song  on  a  fox  and  geese,  125. 

Songs   composed  by  women,   20- 

22. 

South  African  Dutch,  170. 
Spencer,  B.,  34. 
Springfield  Mountain,  210,  234. 
Standard  Dictionary,  The,  40. 
Stanley,   H.   M.,   10. 
Stanleys,  the,   167. 
Starving  to  Death  on  a  Govern- 
ment Claim,  206. 
Stecher,  Joe,  228. 
Steenstrup,  J.  C.  H.  R.,  70,  72, 

73,  173. 

Steere,  J.  B.,  26. 
Stempel,  G.  H.,  65,  83,  88,  107, 

140,  150. 
St.  Nicholas  and  Three  Maidens, 

172. 
Stoning  of  St.  Stephen,  The,  181, 

182. 

Storm,  Theodor,  235. 
Stow,  G.  W.,  16. 
Stratton  Water,  41. 
Structural   repetition,    121-139. 
St.  Stephen  and  Herod,  118,  123, 

142,    164,    168,    173,    180,    182, 

184,  189. 

Sullivan,  Sir  Arthur,  158. 
Sumer  is  icumen  in,  49,  55,  78, 

184. 

Susannah,  or  Seemly  Susan,  172. 
Swanee  River,  The,  208,  224. 
Sweet  Betsy  from  Pike,  206,  227. 
Symposius,  94. 

Tamlane,  81,  82. 

Taylor,  Marshall  W.,  130. 

Tee-Totallers   Are    Coming,    132. 


INDEX 


247 


Texas  Rangers,  The,  204,  234. 
There  Was  a  Romish  Lady,  92, 

199. 
Thomas  a  Beket,  the  Murder  of, 

182. 

Thomas  de  Hales,  176. 
Thomas  Potts,  100. 
Thomas  Rymer,  48,  56,  78,  165. 
Three  Sailor  Boys,  The,  196. 
Thomas  of  Erseldoune,  165. 
Thuren,  H.,  74,  166. 
Tipperary,  152,  205,  220. 
Tolman,  A.  H.,  193. 
Toxophilus,  98. 
Trip  to  Chinatown,  A,  213. 
True  Lover's  Farewell,  The,  137. 
Turpin,    Dick,    the   highwayman, 

226. 

Tuskegee    singers,   the,   224. 
Twelfth   Day,   A   Ballad   of   the, 

180. 
Two  Brothers,  The,  79,  93,  195, 

197. 

Two  Little  Oirls  in  Blue,  213. 
Two  Sisters,  The,  53,  54,  80,  136, 

196,  197. 

Tyler,  M.  C.,  203. 
Types    of    American    song,    201- 

202. 

Uhland,  J.  L.,  43. 

Uniformity   of  the  ballad   style, 

146. 

Unfortunate  Rake,  The,  207. 
Unreconstructed,  228. 

Vigfusson  and  Cleasby,  69. 

Village  Bride,  The,  201. 

Visions  of  Seynt  Poul,  The,  172. 


Wee  Wee  Man,  The,  165. 

Wendell,  Barrett,  216. 

Weeping  Mary,   128. 

Weeping  Willow,  the,  210. 

Weevilly  Wheat,  61,  62. 

We're  Marching  Down  to  Old 
Quebec,  204. 

Weston,  Jessie  L.,  126. 

When  I  Became  a  Rover,  226. 

When  This  Cruel  War  is  Over, 
204. 

Whiffen,  Thomas,  10,  22,  24,  25, 
27,  30,  34,  145. 

Whoopee-Ti-Yi-Yo,  227. 

Wife  of  Usher's  Well,  The,  102. 

Wilde,  Oscar,  158. 

William   of   Malmesbury,    184. 

Willie  and  Mary,  200. 

Willie  Reilly,  219. 

Wissmann,  H.  von,  10. 

Wolf,  Ferdinand,  141. 

Wood,  J.  E.,  26. 

Wordsworth,  W.,  18. 

Work,  Henry  C.,  204. 

Wrap  Me  in  a  Bundle,  228. 

Wreck  of  the  Hesperus,  The,  41, 
118. 

Wreck  of  the  Lady  Elgin,  The, 
212. 

"  Wrenched  accent "  in  the  bal- 
lads, 108. 

Wundt,  Wilhelm,  8. 

Young  Beichan,  160,  196. 
Young  Charlotte,    124,   209,   213, 

223,  226,  234. 
Young  Bunting,  160. 
Young  Thomlin,  82,   190. 
Young,  W.  T.,  38. 


Wart  of  Oermanie,  The,  226.  Zip  Coon,  152,  225. 

Warton,  Thomas,  184,  185.  Zulu,  the,  25,  30,  34. 

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